THE ELECTION

one

Kokoda Track, New Guinea - Wednesday, 23 September, 1942 - 1410 hrs.

Robbo reached for his bayonet and slid it from its scabbard. He stared at the cold steel - its shape, its artistry - as though about to intone a prayer before executing his next move. A moment was all he needed to contemplate how he'd come to know this instrument of war. He was a member of the Australian Militia - a conscript - known to regular soldiers and to the public as a chocolate soldier, a chocko; not a real soldier, just a kid from Cairns who, a few months ago, was wondering what he was going to do with  his life. Now, at nineteen, he knew what he'd be doing in his foreseeable future. A single rain drop slid from the jungle canopy and plopped onto his bayonet, causing him to blink.  There was something slightly sensual about the sight of the small drop gliding down the smooth surface of the weapon. It was a weapon, wasn't it? Even though he'd found many uses for it:  shaving, opening ration tins, cleaning his finger nails. And that other use. Only a couple of years ago, there'd be a slight hesitation - a freeze-frame moment - when he'd wonder whether what he was about to do might cause someone a serious injury, before tackling an opposition team member on the football field. The opposing side was different now, a lot more than a tackle was required. More than once, the bayonet had got him out of trouble. It wasn't long before he understood what his sergeant had meant when he'd told them during boot camp that the most feared command they would ever hear, the single order that would send an electric shiver of fear down his spine was 'Fix bayonets!'

Bayonets didn't need fixing for his next task.  He gripped the bayonet in his right hand and slowly raised it up to his left forearm where a leech - twice the size of anything he'd seen in the rainforests around Cairns - was greedily sucking blood from just below his elbow.  Positioning the tip of the bayonet under the swollen belly of the leech, he prised it off, hoping that in doing so he wouldn't leave half of it behind. As a youth back home, he'd been taught to carry a pack of cigarettes and some matches when walking through rainforest tracks. A lit cigarette - a tried and tested method of removing them.  Great, if you happened to have one that is. Right now, he was fresh out and there wasn't a corner store nearby where he could get some more. The leech dropped into the mud and he used his bayonet to ensure it wouldn't feed on anyone else.

Robbo replaced the bayonet and glanced around. When he'd learned of his posting to New Guinea, he hadn't worried too much about the environment awaiting him.  Growing up in Queensland's far north, he'd been used to jungle, insects, burning temperatures, high humidity and torrential rain. But nothing had prepared him for this. In the midst of unsurpassed beauty - of rainforest trees, enormous flowers of kaleidoscopic colour and diversity, breathtaking mountain scenery - was humidity the like of which he'd never known. Rain that arrived in bucket loads. Mud that swallowed the landscape in glaciers, insects the size of small animals and swollen creeks full of foul blood-sucking leeches like the one he'd just dispatched. And then of course, those other creatures - Japanese soldiers - the kind that didn't mind dying for their Emperor.

●

Private George Robinson was a gangly redhead possessed of freckles and a love of life.  Until the war interrupted his world, he'd lived at home with his parents in Redlynch, Cairns working in his uncle's bakery. He was regarded as a loveable rogue by family and friends, not least of all by his girlfriend, Fran. When things got bad, it was the thought of returning home to her that pulled him through. But when he was really low, he questioned how long she'd be prepared to wait for him. She was a pretty girl, tall, with long, black hair, deep brown eyes, a dimpled chin, narrow waist and a smile that lit up his life. Local blokes who'd somehow managed to dodge the war, would be queuing up to ask her out.

George was known as Robbo to his friends. One was Barry Evans, a fellow Queenslander. It was only two days since he'd watched in horror as Barry, after declaring he'd had enough, had placed his left hand against a tree, and with an officer's revolver borrowed for the occasion, fired a shot into his left palm. It bought him a ticket home.

The small patrol, of which Robbo was a member, had stopped for a twenty minute break in a jungle clearing. The rain had stopped too, but the sun brought with it unbearable heat and humidity.  Robbo was sitting on a grenade-damaged tree, itself a victim of war. Now that he'd seen off the leech, he tried to interest himself in his iron rations. He stared at the contents of the tin box - cheese, tea and a small, round tin of chopped ham and beef - as though, if he focused intently enough, they would metamorphose into his mother's Sunday roast with all the trimmings. But his thoughts were marching off in another direction. He wondered whether Barry had been returned to a northern base hospital, or even sent home to his family. He became aware of another presence beside him. He didn't look up; he knew it was Bluey.

Private Kevin 'Bluey' Byrne was slightly shorter and a little older at twenty-one than Robbo. As the first to arrive on the scene sporting red hair and freckles, he was allocated the appropriate nickname. His home was in northern New South Wales where he'd finished his apprenticeship as a carpenter, just as his call-up arrived to rob him of any hope of putting his trade to good use. Since arriving in the jungle, the two redheads had become close friends, almost inseparable, looking out for one another, as if they were members of a brotherhood by virtue of their hair and complexion.

'Yeah,' Bluey said, 'they reckon if you stare at it long enough, it turns into roast chicken and fresh vegies.'

Robbo looked up and grinned. 'You know, I was just thinking that myself. Actually, I'm not all that hungry. I was just wondering what happened to Barry.'

Bluey nodded and momentarily looked away. 'Yeah, I know. Well, don't worry about him. He's probably relaxing in some comfortable hospital, chatting up the nurses by now. Reckon he might be in for a dishonourable discharge. Not something I'd like to live with for the rest of my life.'

'No, but makes you think, doesn't it? He might have a dishonourable discharge and a hole in his hand for the rest of his life. You and me - we mightn't do so well.'

Bluey stared off into the jungle. Robbo was right. They'd seen so many of their mates killed in action or the poor bastards dying of disease, but he figured some time back, not long after stepping ashore, that there was no point worrying about the what ifs.  One day at a time, as his dad used to say. 'Yeah, but that's life, Robbo. Don't get down in the dumps about it, mate. Look on the bright side - foreign travel, food, free clothing.  What more could a bloke ask for?'

Robbo's mouth twitched into a smile. 'Yeah, I guess you're right, Bluey. Don't s'pose you'd swap a can of chopped ham and beef for a decent rump steak, spuds and peas?'

'Naw,' Bluey grinned, relieved to see Robbo out of the doldrums. 'I couldn't manage that, but I do have a spare biscuit. If you enjoy eating the shit of a constipated roo, you'll really like this one.' He put his hand on Robbo's shoulder and gave it a little shake. 'Come on, mate. Let's go and join the others. They'll be wondering where we are.'

●

Sergeant Douglas Williams had blond, curly hair, the envy of every woman he'd met. It was inevitable that he was given the appellation of Curly, a name he would rather do without, but as he'd had it since his school days, he was resigned to being stuck with it. His complexion was ruddy as a result of life on his parents' cattle station just outside the Queensland town of Longreach. He was over six feet tall and women found him ruggedly handsome. On the surface he was tough, forever barking orders which he expected to be followed to the letter. Underneath, though, he was kind, considerate and caring. He was twenty-eight years old and had married his childhood sweetheart, Mabel, just before he'd joined the army at the onset of the war. They had no children but he'd be doing something about that as soon as he got home. Not a day went by that he didn't dream of starting a family in his home town. Longreach might have been dry, dusty and miles from anywhere, but it was paradise to him compared to this shit-hole. 

He bellowed an order at the eight battle-weary soldiers standing before him. 'All of you,' he said in stentorian tones, 'that is, apart from Private Byrne here, are to continue north-east up the Track. As you can hear from the firing going on around us, we're not alone in this here jungle. The Japs are hell-bent on reaching Port Moresby while our boys, less than two miles south-west of here, are doing everything they can to stop them. We've succeeded in turning them back, but we mustn't be complacent. It's our job to find out what those yellow bastards are doing up the Track and to report back to the CO. I know I don't need to tell you to keep your eyes and ears open and to keep quiet. Don't fire indiscriminately. Keep in twos but not far apart from the others.  Any questions?'

No-one had any, except  Bluey. 'Sarge?'

Byrne was always up to mischief, he was a ratbag, but a likeable one all the same. 'Private Byrne.' Curly sighed. 'Yes, I hadn't forgotten you. I want you to take this to the CO. We were lucky this morning. Not much activity down the Track. Deliver it to him personally - and I mean personally. Okay?' He handed a sheet of paper to Bluey.

'Sarge?'

Curly put his hands on his hips and sighed deeply. 'What is it, Byrne?'

'What'll I do then?'

The sergeant shook his head in mock exasperation. 'Unless the bloody CO decides you've done enough for the war effort and sends you on a nice, restful holiday to bloody New Zealand, get back here pronto. At the rate we're moving through this friggin' jungle, I'm sure we won't have progressed far by the time you get back. And there's only one direction to go, isn't there Byrne?'

'Yes, Sarge.'  Bluey looked across at Robbo and winked.

Within seconds, he'd disappeared into the jungle.

●

Less than three miles to the north-east of Sergeant Williams and his men, was another group of soldiers, about the same in number. They were a small advance party which had become detached from the rest of their unit. Although they did not know it at the time, the others were only two miles to the north-east. These men had been attached to the crack Japanese regiment which had landed at Sanananda with Major-General Horii's South Seas Detachment in July. They'd forced the enemy back towards Port Moresby and had been within thirty miles of their goal and victory when Australian reinforcements had turned them back earlier that month. Now they were being edged back along territory they had previously occupied.

The small group was led by Captain Shoichi Minagawa. The captain detested the war. Thirty years of age, he'd been a high school teacher in the southern industrial port city of Nagasaki, was happily married to a girl he'd known since his school days and the proud father of two children. Life was good until he was called upon to do his duty for the Emperor.  He was devastated at leaving his family to go off to war but, accepting the inevitable, he tried to make the best of it. His academic brain and quick wit gained him a commission then a promotion to captain in near record time.

 As a high school teacher and avid student of Japanese history, he knew the Bushido Code well. Originally a code of conduct for the samurai class, it had been revived and modified during the reign of Emperor Meiji in the latter part of the nineteenth century as a basis for the philosophy of education for Japanese of all classes. It formed a particularly large part of the captain's officer training and discipline, as it did for all Japanese Army officers. Bushido encompassed the mysticism and asceticism of Zen Buddhism - Buddhism's Japanese branch - and insisted on the absolute loyalty of the Imperial soldier, trained to fight to the death for the Emperor. Prime Minister Tojo adapted it as the basis for his Soldier Code in 1941 and it called for soldiers to die rather than suffer the dishonour of capture. For those who disobeyed, harsh penalties included removal from official records as well as public castigation and humiliation of their families.

Captain Minagawa firmly believed in the Bushido Code as it was originally intended, but not the current version, though he kept his criticism to himself. He just wanted the war to be over so that he could return home to his family and his career.

The captain and his men were slowly moving north-east. Although the Australians wouldn't be too far behind, they found it difficult to move fast. They were hungry, fatigued and plagued by leeches, having just forged a stream so swollen that they had been immersed in waters swirling up to their necks. The Track itself, beneath its blanket of dead and dying leaves, was nothing more than a river of mud. But the men knew better than to ask their captain to stop, so they suffered in silence.

Immediately behind the captain was Sergeant Yuiji Takada. He was thirty-two years old and not only lived, but was also prepared to die, for the army. His first job on leaving school was as an apprentice at a tailor's shop. But he was also an army reservist and was therefore called up in 1938 in the war against China. His heroics earned him quick promotion and by the time he was despatched to the South Pacific to join Captain Minagawa, he had made the rank of sergeant. He enjoyed the war, considering it an honour to suffer severe hardship in the jungles of a foreign country in the service of the Emperor. To him, there was no difference between Bushido and Tojo's Soldier Code.  Whenever he attacked the enemy, it was to the shout of 'Banzai' - long live the Emperor - and, if in his frenzied attack he was to be killed, so be it. So far, though, he had managed to get through his war unscathed.

Captain Minagawa loathed him.

●

The sergeant heard it first and froze. It might have been a soldier's boot on a twig, or the brushing away of a hanging vine or the light slap of a hand killing a mosquito but, whatever it was, it was a sound out of place. He quietly alerted the captain, then the others. The captain signalled for his men to stop and take cover then, in sign language, for his sergeant to go back along the Track to investigate. He hadn't heard anything, but something had gripped his sergeant's attention. As much as he detested the man, he respected his uncanny ability to sense trouble.

As the other men crouched silent and still on either side of the Track, the sergeant slithered backwards in the mud.

The captain silently prayed that he and his men wouldn't be outnumbered should those following close behind be the enemy, when Sergeant Takada suddenly leapt up.

'BANZAI,'  the sergeant screamed as he ran back, the bayonet fixed, ready. Not waiting for an order, the rest of the men instinctively followed their sergeant, despite the apparent lack of a target.

'BANZAI.'

The captain felt a rush of adrenalin as he raced to join his men. He immediately saw what had alerted his sergeant. An enemy patrol, small in number but with rifles and bayonets aimed and ready, had emerged from the jungle, their faces masks of hatred and fear. He steeled himself for battle.

Within seconds, the jungle was engulfed with the sound of gunfire, ripping flesh, shouts of anger and screams of agony. In a moment that seemed to last forever, an enemy soldier came within inches of the captain, his bayonet aimed at his heart. An image of his family flashed in his mind as he prepared for the death he knew was inevitable. Suddenly, the soldier's eyes widened, then froze and his rifle dropped to the ground. The captain watched, incredulously, as he followed his weapon into the mud. It was then that he saw the gaping wound in his back and behind him Sergeant Takada, his own bayonet dripping enemy blood. The two men eyed each other for a split second, the captain for that fleeting moment silently expressing gratitude. The sergeant didn't hold his gaze for long - he spun around and fired at a rapidly approaching soldier, hitting him in the neck.

Within minutes, the battle was over. Captain Minagawa looked around the bloodied jungle floor. Only one of his men had been killed. Not one enemy solider had escaped.

The skirmish won, the captain ordered his men to regroup. They'd fought well and deserved a rest, but he wanted them to move forward. The enemy patrol was small, and their main unit might not be far behind.

As they began to move forward, the captain noticed one of them was missing, Sergeant Takada. Ordering his men to wait, he went back to the scene of the battle. There, he found the sergeant and the blood drained from his face.

'Banzai, Banzai, Banzai.' Over and over the sergeant screamed the one word, his right hand working in rhythm with his shouts. 

The words seemed to fill Captain Minagawa's head so that they and the awful hack hack hack of the sergeant's reddening hand became one, consuming him with a feeling he had never before experienced. Then he did something he'd managed to avoid the whole time he'd been at war. He lost his temper. 'Sergeant Takada!  Get here!  Now!'

The sergeant ignored the order, still slashing, his frenzy unabated.

The captain despatched two of his men to retrieve Takada.

They returned, ashen-faced, with their sergeant.

Captain Minagawa glared at the man who moments ago had saved his life. He no longer felt in his debt.

The sergeant stood defiantly before him, the bloody bayonet at his side, dripping crimson onto the mud-soaked yellow and gold of the rainforest floor.

●

It was late afternoon and the light was already fading as Bluey made his way back up the Track. His mission complete, he was anxious to catch up with his patrol. He could hear gunfire from various directions. He wasn't comfortable alone and prayed for an uneventful return to Sergeant Williams and his mates. He had to make it before the light faded much more. He came upon the small clearing where he'd left them, so he continued on. They'd be moving slowly - it wouldn't take long to catch up.

When he found them, he wanted to believe they were Japanese but Curly's golden locks were a dead give-away. The sergeant lay on his back, one leg twisted grotesquely behind his body, his arms outstretched, his once sparkling blue eyes open and staring blankly. There were a number of bloody holes in his tunic. Bluey saw the bodies of his mates. Jonesy, Mitcham, McAuliffe...one by one he removed their dog tags, lifting up those that lay face down then gently replacing them. That same day, he'd seen them laughing, joking, ribbing each other. Most were around his own age, all conscripts like him, here against their will. Now they lay in the mud, ravenous flies buzzing from one bloody corpse to the other. In shock, he fell to his knees, dropping his rifle onto the muddy, blood-soaked ground. His mouth was dry, his stomach had tied itself in knots and he could barely hear himself think over the drumbeat of his heart. Taking a moment to recapture his breath, he glanced up into the treetops, and saw a single bird, one of the most colourful he had ever seen. It was a parrot, its rare beauty incongruous with the scene below. Bluey followed its movements as it flew to another tree for a full minute before returning to his nightmare. Smithy, Robbo, Ackr...shit! Robbo. He moved.

All he could see was the back of Robbo's head for his body lay in the mud near the centre of the Track with his feet pointing into the jungle. The lower part of his body was partly obliterated by overhanging foliage. Robbo's slouch hat was missing. As Bluey approached, he could only see red as if there was a veil of blood over his eyes shrouding everything crimson. Knowing it wouldn't be a pretty sight, he averted his eyes from his friend's body. He knelt beside him and took his hand.

Robbo opened his eyes. He moved his mouth and seemed to be speaking.

Bluey heard nothing. He put his right ear against Robbo's mouth. This time he picked up some words: '-what the bastards did...look...bastards...'

Bluey gulped and forced himself to finally examine his friend's body. Robbo's shorts had been slashed and yanked down to his knees, his shirt ripped up, his genitals  dismembered and placed on what was left of his partially disembowelled lower abdomen. There was a putrid smell of faeces and blood. Bluey vomited.

Grasping his friend's hand even harder, Bluey managed to speak. It was more of a gabble.  'You...you'll be alright, mate. Ol' Bluey's here now. You've gotta hang on, mate. I'm gonna get a medic. You'll be alright.'

Robbo's mouth moved again.

Bluey put his ear down.

'Help...me, help...me...'

'Yeah, of course I'll help. I'm going for the medics. But I've got to leave you to get them. You gotta hang on, mate.'

'No...help me...stay here. Don't...leave m...You'll...need...rifle.'

'Don't worry about my rif...'

It took a moment for what his friend meant to make sense to Bluey. When it did it hit him like a thunderbolt. 'No!  Jesus, no...Christ...I can't, Robbo...I can't.'

Robbo's hand tightened again. 'Help....me...Help meeeeee...'

Christ, he was only twenty-one, he'd killed many men, but this was unthinkable.  He rocked back and forth on his heels, squeezing his eyes shut. After an agonising minute which seemed like an hour, his common sense kicked in and he knew that there was no alternative. There were no medics for miles - long, muddy, tortuous miles - and even if he found one, there'd be nothing the medic could do for his friend.

Ashamed of the tears flooding down his muddy face, he took his hand back from Robbo's, straightened up before walking to where he'd dropped his Lee-Enfield .303.  He turned and walked slowly back to again kneel by his friend's side. He tried to keep the rifle out of sight as best he could. He rested it at Robbo's side, the barrel inches below his chin. 'I don't know what religion you are mate, but I reckon you might know a few words of The Lord's Prayer.'

He thought Robbo nodded.

'Our Father who art in Heaven...'

Robbo was moving his lips.

'Hallowed be Thy name, Thy Kingdom come...' He put his right hand down to the trigger, and moved his left to steady the barrel. 'Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven...'

Robbo's lips continued to move, but no sound came out.

'Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us...' Bluey was shaking so much, it was all he could do to keep his finger steady on the trigger. 'And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil...'

It was just another gunshot in the jungle.

'Amen.'