A New Place by Andrew Wareham

Author:Andrew Wareham [Wareham, Andrew]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Electronic Book Company
Published: 2018-12-09T22:00:00+00:00

A New Place

Chapter Six

George remained one full day at Laloki. He enjoyed himself in the mess, where he ate at a table on his own for breakfast and luncheon. The food was at least palatable and he was not plagued by the company of fools, for none of the base officers expressed any wish to join him. He sat in Lowry’s company in the evening. He amused himself morning and afternoon with Lieutenant Merrett, equipping him for the bush and warning him of the behaviour expected of an officer on detachment in the Territory, and asking a few necessary questions. He took some pains to confuse the poor man by using his best school accent.

“Brigadier Lowry – he sounds as if he knows a bit about the bush.”

“Yes, sir. He trained in India for a year and actually spent time at Darwin and in the north of Queensland. There were infantry training camps in both locations, sir, during the late Thirties. I gather that there was some expectation of trouble with the Japanese. It was thought that Australia might take part in an invasion to reconquer the Philippines, sir, at the side of the Americans. The Japs were not expected to invade the Territory, sir.”

“They were, in Rabaul. Those of us who knew what they were doing in China were pretty much sure they’d come this way as well. They want the whole of Asia and the Pacific. Especially, they want Australia, for being empty, as they see it.”

“Surely they know that the Americans won’t allow that, sir.”

George shrugged – how the Japanese thought was unknown to him.

“Maybe they think the Americans are like the Russians. They defeated Russia easily enough in 1905… Mind you, they might have a grievance since then. The Americans chaired the peace talks and fiddled the Japanese out of most of their gains in the war. They did the same in the ‘90s when the Japanese kicked the shit out of China. Might have left the Japanese willing to take a poke at America, perhaps.”

Lieutenant Merrett had some knowledge of military history, but only of the major wars in Europe. The Japanese campaigns and their results were unknown to him and he preferred the Japanese to be simple villains. He turned to a topic more familiar to him.

“This matter of uniforms, Captain Hawkins. As a staff officer, I must set an example, you know…”

“So you must, Merrett. You can make a choice – do you want to exemplify the fighting officer or the useless dick?”

“I presume, sir, that you consider yourself to be a ‘fighting officer’?”

“To an extent, yes… By the way, I think I’ve met you before. Were you not in the first year when I left the old school? I seem to remember your face, vaguely.”

“Good God! Are you that Hawkins? You were a sergeant in the Cadet Corps, were you not?”

“I was. The only bit of my education that has shown in the slightest degree useful.”

“Well! I mean to say, sir! That is different, is it not?”

George did not understand the significance of that ejaculation.

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