Beyond the Bukubuk Tree: A World War II Novel of Love and Loss by Goldberg Loretta

Author:Goldberg, Loretta
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: MadeGlobal Publishing
Published: 2024-06-25T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 22

Mobile Hospital Tent,

Friday 8 August 1941.

Jake tamped down his pipe, lay back on his bed, and glared at the gold-edged invitation in his hand. This party he couldn’t decline. He was in hospital pyjamas, having faked nausea to avoid seeing Wip at the Officers’ Ball tomorrow. The event promised to be spectacular, put on by the battalion to thank Rabaul citizens for their hospitality and construction work on the aerodromes and artillery bases. Jake had checked himself in on Thursday night and planned to discharge himself on Sunday, working extra shifts to make up for his deception.

But this event, which Wip would also attend, he couldn’t dodge. It was a ball scheduled for Wednesday, August 20. Sir Joshua Cohen, a visiting Singapore businessman, had rented part of the Cosmopolitan Hotel to reciprocate the army’s hospitality at the Officers’ Ball. For Captain Jacob Mordecai Friedman, a Jewish physician, to snub an obviously Jewish merchant who’d earned the king’s honours would be grist for gossip. Wip’s not worth the embarrassment, Jake told himself. He wrote an acceptance note and sent it by the hospital boy to Sir Joshua.

Five evenings later, he watched his tentmate Derek Egan don the mess dress of a Royal Australian Artillery officer. Egan shimmered in a black jacket with red lapels, a white shirt and black bow tie. He was so scrubbed he could have been an advertisement for Colgate soap. Jake was equally shining in his best khaki tunic, captain’s pips and unit badge. His shoes were mirrors. Miraculously, they’d kept their formal dress free of mould. Jake’s cheeks glowed pink, his curly hair and moustache were glossy black, but dark circles under his eyes betrayed his insomnia.

The guests would be the same as at the wildly successful Officers’ Ball—the island’s governing and merchant leaders with their wives, veterans who’d captured Rabaul from the Germans in 1914 and stayed, and current military officers—an all-white crowd, of course.

Jake’s bowels braided as he stepped onto the veranda of the two-story Cosmopolitan Hotel. Above him, hotel guests on the upper balconies leant against the rails, watching city leaders emerge from their cars.

The hotel had a beer garden and car park under the shadow of the picturesque Mother. Jake vaguely remembered that a Chinese entrepreneur had built and owned it for years, then sold it to a plantation owner. The Cosmopolitan was the preferred social hub in Rabaul. He’d arrived early. He hadn’t meant to; anxiety must have made his body rush as much as his mind. How will I handle seeing Wip? No part of him allowed Wip to be indifferent to him; his gut expected it.

Lively talk wafted from the beer garden. It stopped suddenly when the news broadcast began. Grateful for a distraction, Jake sat at the bar, took off his white gloves, and sipped a glass of bitters.

“‘I have no son,’ the Soviet Dictator, Joseph Stalin, is reported to have replied to German ransom demands for his son, Yakov. The Germans have apparently captured Stalin’s illegitimate son and are using his purportedly eager surrender to urge Russian soldiers to defect.

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