Copyright Oggbashan July 2021 (Edited December 2021)
The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
This is a work of fiction. The events described here are imaginary; the settings and characters are fictitious and are not intended to represent specific places or living persons.
Some of the conversations are assumed to be in a New Guinea tribal language but retold in English.
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Stewart 'Canny' Mackenzie was a re-tread Major in the Australian Army. His extended family had emigrated to Australia when he was thirteen years old. His father and grandfather had been gillies - game wardens - on a highland deer shooting estate. But as a result of death duties the estate had been sold to City of London bankers who were more interested in the number of kills rather than the stalking the Scots owners had practised.
Stewart's father, helped by Stewart's grandfather, was now warden of an extensive National Park. Stewart had won a scholarship to an Australian Grammar school. He joined the Cadet Force and by the time he left school was the Head Cadet, as he became at university where he studied anthropology on an Army sponsorship, going on to Officer Training.
His stalking skills, taught by his father and grandfather, were legendary. He worked in the remote highlands of New Guinea, embedded with a small local tribe. His maternal grandfather had been a blacksmith and also taught those skills to Stewart. Stewart had a forge at his base where he made items for the tribe such as knives, arrowheads etc. But his nickname of 'canny' came from his love of imported canned American Lager. His supply packages consisted of cans of lager more than anything else. With the empty cans he made items for the tribe such as cups, water bottles, plates etc. He also had bottles of beer but resupply by air drop was difficult without breaking the bottles, so he preferred the newly introduced cans.
His role in the Army was to train soldiers in Jungle warfare, which he did successfully until 1938 when he decided to retire and concentrate on anthropology, living with 'his' tribe in New Guinea and drinking canned lager.
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1n 1939 he was recalled from Army Reserve to his former role as a trainer for jungle warfare, which he did mainly based at Port Moresby. His war might have continued at a slow pace until 1942 when the Japanese invaded New Guinea.
He asked, and was sent, to join his tribe in the highlands, to watch for Japanese advances. He wasn't sure how the tribe would react to the Japanese. They might ignore them. They had no loyalty to Australia or the British Empire and would probably stay neutral but might be persuaded to watch the Japanese in exchange for goods such as knives etc.
After a few months during which the Japanese had not come very far inland, the Japanese made a terrible mistake. Two of the tribe's grandmothers were gathering nuts when six Japanese soldiers found them. The women were raped before being used for bayonet practice and left disembowelled. That changed the tribe's attitude overnight. The wanted to kill as many Japanese as possible and asked Stewart for arms. he refused to give them rifles but made crossbows for them, more powerful than their existing bows. He led them to ambush Japanese patrols, killing one or two men silently before disappearing back into the jungle which all of them knew far better than any Japanese.
From then on, Stewart and the forty fighting men of the tribe harassed the Japanese from the fastnesses of the jungle, accounting for a dozen or so Japanese troops every week, sometimes more.
But they couldn't stop the inevitable advance of thousands of Japanese. What they could do is watch, follow and report, and sometimes call-in air strikes. The air strikes had limited effect because crossing the Owen Stanley ranges and locating a Japanese position in thick jungle was difficult.
Canny had never had a lasting girlfriend because few women wanted to camp out in the jungle where Canny spent most of his time. He couldn't consider any tribeswomen, not because he didn't fancy them, and many were very willing, but because out of tribe relationships caused killings.
When the Japanese built an advanced base about ten miles West of the Kokoda Track, which Canny reported to Port Moresby, the authorities decided it had to be attacked and preferably destroyed. The Kokoda Track was the only practical if almost impossible way to cross the Owen Stanley ranges and the base would be a threat to any allied forces coming along the Track. Canny asked for, and got, some metal plates and tubes, and some incendiary explosives.
He made crude mortars from the tubes which would launch used lager cans about 100 yards. But the Japanese had been strewing caltrops around their base. Canny, wearing Army boots with a steel insole, was immune. The barefoot tribesmen weren't until Canny cut steel plates to be built into sandals made by the tribeswomen. But the warriors disliked them. They couldn't move as quickly and quietly as they had in bare feet, Canny arranged a compromise. The first man would wear a pair of sandals and carry a strong magnet. If any caltrops were found, everyone would wear the reinforced sandals until they were beyond the caltrops. They might collect the caltrops and move them to a trail used by the Japanese whose footwear didn't protect them from the caltrops.
After more Japanese had been injured by caltrops than the few tribesmen, the Japanese stopped using them.
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Canny arranged a time and date for the attack on the Japanese base. With forty men he couldn't face hundreds of Japanese, but he would set fire to the base, withdraw, and let bombers from Port Moresby aim at the flames and smoke. His attack would start ten minutes before the bombers would arrive.
The lager-can mortars were set up and the other tribesmen had flaming bolts for their crossbows. When Canny got the radio message that the bombers were close, the mortars were fired. The results exceeded his expectations. The inflammable cans and the same mixture on the flaming arrows could not be put out by water, only by burying in earth, and the huts set alight were too large for that.
For once the bombers had a clear target and their bombs were almost all dropped in the right place but Canny and the tribesmen had moved half a mile away, even so, one bomb landed close to them.
As the bombing continued, the Japanese fled into the surrounding jungle. The mortar attack and the bombing had killed about eighty Japanese. The tribesmen killed another dozen or so in the jungle before the rest of the Japanese retreated back to their main base. Canny and the tribesmen had carefully explored the remains of the base but almost anything of value had been destroyed.
What the tribesmen had acquired was enough rifles and ammunition for all of them. Despite Canny's reservations they would not give them up so he would have to train the tribesmen in their use.
A hundred yards away from the main base they found an intact hut surrounded by an electrified barbed wire fence. After they had shorted out the electricity and cut through the fence, they found that the hut's door was barred on the outside. Inside they found half a dozen captured Australian soldiers and three nurses who had staffed a rural medical station. They hurried the former prisoners away before the Japanese could return.
They had to abandon one mortar which had been damaged by Japanese counter-fire. But although repairable, it would be useless to the Japanese because it fired American lager cans, not standard mortar shells.
The tribesmen's withdrawal was slowed by the former prisoners and the carrying of rifles and ammunition. The nurses' footwear was unsuitable for the jungle, so they were given some steel reinforced sandals, but even so the speed was half that normally. The Japanese had reacted like a disturbed hornet's nest and were everywhere in the jungle but often they were firing at each other. Some, who came too close, were killed by crossbows.
At the tribe's temporary base, which was moved every few weeks, the prisoners could rest. Arrangements were made for some of the tribeswomen to escort the rescued prisoners to the forward Australian forces, but it would take a week for the journey. The senior nurse, Sandra, had slightly sprained an ankle. She declined to leave and suggested she could stay to treat any wounded, and also to kill Japanese if she could because the Japanese had killed her doctor husband and their two young sons. She wanted revenge.
Sandra was a well-developed fair-haired woman. While her ankle was healing, she decided she would look after Canny. She washed his uniforms and repaired them frequently damaged by passing through the jungle. She took over from some of the native woman as his cook, preparing Australian style food instead of what the tribe generally ate. While Canny appreciated her, and so did the tribe for her medical skills, Canny wasn't sure that being in the jungle fighting Japanese was the right place for an Australian nurse, but Sandra wouldn't leave.
About five miles from the tribe's current base was a partly completed airstrip that had been started in 1939 by a logging company but abandoned before completion because of the war. Canny and the tribesmen didn't have the resources or equipment to complete it, but they used it to receive air drops. Canny took the tribe there and set up a rifle range for them to practise with the captured Japanese rifles. Sandra had been kangaroo hunting with her father but found the Japanese rifles awkward to use. Once Canny gave her a SMLE, she could hit any target up to four hundred yards.
After a few weeks, the tribesmen were competent up to one hundred yards. Because of the thick jungle they were unlikely to fire further than that, but Canny was still worried that they weren't as quiet as the crossbows.
Over those few weeks some medical supplies had ben air-dropped for Sandra, but she had decided that Canny was her special care. He and his tribesmen had little real impact on the Japanese advance and were just an irritation but worried the Japanese troops because they could attack silently and disappear back into the jungle. Their kills were few, but their impact slowed the advance. Canny was of strategic importance because he kept an eye on what the Japanese were doing and could report by radio to Port Moresby.
Sandra's base had been about twenty miles away dealing with three tribes who all spoke different languages. Canny's tribe spoke yet a fourth, similar language, but subtly different. It took Sandra about two weeks to begin to understand them and to be able to speak to them. Sandra managed to emphasise Canny's importance to the war effort and that he should be protected at all costs. On the next patrol Canny was surprised to be surrounded by eight tribeswomen carrying crossbows.
When they encountered a Japanese patrol, the women surrounded Canny and stopped him from taking the lead. Sandra stood in front of him carrying an early production model of the Owen submachine gun in.45 ACP calibre with which she killed three Japanese. It was one of four air-dropped to Canny and not yet on general issue to the Australian Forces
"Not enough," she said afterwards. "I want ten of each for my two boys and another ten for my husband."
