Detonator nose decorations
We were maintaining all the equipment on the Kokoda Track, and plus the, I was attached to the engineers, so we were working together, and if they wanted a fitter, they'd take me up. And I was in and out all over the place. And we did three months up there, and then we came back to Moresby. And then we went up on the Bulldog-Wau Road.
And the Bulldog-Wau Road was west of Moresby, and you traveled up the river about 60 miles to get to a place called Bulldog. And we were building a road from Bulldog to Wau, and the Japs were building a road from Salamaua to Wau. And the 2nd 50 Independent Company, they few into Bulldog and walked across to Wau. And they pushed the Japs back to Salamaua. So there was no Japs in that area while we were building the road.
But one little incident on the road was, we used to, well you don't carry your detonators and your gelignite together. The powder monkey, he was in charge of that, but he always used to carry the detonators himself and trust the gelignite to other people. We could get plenty of gelignite, but no detonators. They were really controlled. And anyhow we used to go down and borrow. Borrow was the word we used to use, two or three detonators and go and blow some fish in the river, to get a feed.
And so anyhow, sometime later, the powder monkey came up to our mob, because there was only 16 in our unit, full strength, and we were only about ten most of the time. And we used to go and get a feed of fish because we were only on bully beef and biscuits all the time. And after a while, he came to the unit one day and he got us all there. He said, "Listen fellows" he said, "I'm sorry, I'm going to dob you in because I don't mind you taking one or two detonators, but when you take a box and the whole lot", because he used to plant the detonators on the job, right, and just carry the gelignite because it's pretty dangerous. So we said, "No, we didn't do it, no way in the world." Anyhow, to cut a long story short, a few weeks later, we were in the middle of the Kukukuku Country, which is, they're pygmy New Guineans. And they were, we saw them at a distance, but not close.
And anyhow, this day I was working on a bulldozer right out the end of the right, and there was only two of us there and I said to my mate, I said "listen mate" I said, "There's somebody out there. The hair on the back of my neck is worrying me". And he said "No, there's no-one there". The kuni grass was fairly flat. So anyhow, at that stage I used to smoke and drink because we used to get them for nothing. And so I jumped down and got a stick that was much higher than the grass, or a bit higher than the grass, and I split the end of it, and I stood up and I rolled a cigarette and puffing the smoke out puffing out.
I also rolled another one, like this, and I put it in the top of the stick. And I walked out to where I reckon my senses said there was somebody out there. And I planted it. And it's about that high above the grass.
And I'd be working away there, hammer and chisel, hammer and chisel, all this, I was cutting an old weld out of the, the bulldozer had busted all the A-frame and everything, split the whole thing. So, I had to cut the old weld out. And anyhow I kept my eye on it, but I never saw the cigarette go. So, I'd stand up and roll another cigarette and hold it up there and take it out and put it in the thing, but I'd put it in a bit further, and I did this constantly.
And then I saw a hand go up. I jumped off the thing, and ran straight to it, and here's a little pygmy. The Kukukuku, down like this. And what did I see? He had a detonator stuck in his nose. So, in sign language, I said: "No, no good, no good". Here's me, he said, "Man". So, I said "You come in", and I was rolling cigarettes for him, see, and all these other ones came in.
There was about a dozen of them, all tiny little things. And they've all got detonators stuck in their nose. So, I said to him, "No good, no good". So, I got them, there was a tree with a funny mark on it, about 100 yards away, you know. I said "You"... They were unbelievable with their arrows. So, I had a look with, at their arrows, and I said, "Me make you a tip for the arrow". I showed him a bit of metal, and I said, "Me put that in there". And I said, "You come back tomorrow, all the detonators. And I make you these things".
So that night, I spent a lot of time digging up all the bits of steel and putting in the layers and mucking around. And making tips for arrows. So, I took them all in, and I think I had a couple of old hacksaw blades, and I sharpened them up and made knives out of them, things like that. So, the next day we went in, I had about three tins of tobacco and papers, and they'd never seen a match. So, I had a couple of packs of matches for them. And they gave me all the detonators and the tin. So, I had, that was the experience I had there.
But in the process, they were, I was telling them "No good. Boom". Yeah. And when they got the detonators, they went up to their village. Their village, cold, so lit a big fire, and one bloke put his cigarette in, and he gets a little light, another man, boom. Blew the front of his face off. So, then I got a detonator and a short fuse, and there was a big rock, and I said, "You look". And I put this detonator underneath and lit the fuse, ran back, and I said "You look". Woof. Oh. Their eyes stood out like organ stops when they saw this, so they were quite happy to get rid of their detonators.
Locals' freshwater knowledge
The other instance was after we had finished the road, we had another job to do, and they dropped us off on the way back to Moresby, and it meant that we would have to walk the best part of 100 miles back to Moresby. And in the process, we came across this village where the Japs had been stationed, and there was a lot of boats that had been, like coastal vessels, not big ones.
They'd stove the wooden planks in the bottom, and sunk them, and they were all lying about everywhere. And some of them they'd taken the engine out, to the repair workshop I suppose. And some had the gearbox off, and hardly any propellers or rudders or things like that.
So I said to the skipper, I said: "Listen, I reckon I could find enough bits and pieces there to assemble one of these things and save us walking back to Moresby". "What a good idea", he said. So, we cannibalized everything and got one going. And so we were in a big gulf. And we were coming out and one of the hoses burst on the vessel, and we lost all our freshwater. We had some cans there with our drinking water in, and the skipper said, "Well you'd better use our freshwater there". And I said, "That's a bad thing". The skipper, so unbeknown to him, I put one aside, and got the bilge water and put that in, in its place. Anyhow, we hadn't gone far, and we saw a village on the coast, so we headed for it, to get some freshwater for drinking and also for, he didn't know about the saltwater going in the engine.
Anyhow, cut a long story short, the locals were very happy to see us, and when we asked them for freshwater, they said not good water here. We get our own freshwater. So it was 6, in the Lakatoi and I had all the empty drums, and I was only one in the Lakatoi, and we were going to get this freshwater. So when they take off, they start to go out to sea. And I said, "No, Australia. Yeah, Australia".
And they said "Freshwater". And I'm thinking, don't tell me we're going to go to Australia to get some freshwater, type of thing, and I said "No, go back. No, freshwater". "Your boss wants freshwater, We give him fresh water". Anyhow, we got out, almost out of sight of land, and they could, on the mountains, they could see where they were. And they pulled up, and they said "Cup". I got my cup out. And they said, dipped over the side. They said "Freshwater". I said, "No, saltwater." "You try". Bloody beautiful freshwater. I said, "How come fresh water?" It must have been the Fly River up here, and it's got a big tributary of all rivers running into it, and the current, they know where the current is, and it's freshwater. So I filled up all the cans, and that's how we got back to Moresby without walking.
Rations and mosquitoes
We were on pretty strict rations. Our ration, I suppose you know, our ration was a tin of bully beef and a packet of biscuits per man, per day, perhaps. And you'd have six blokes together. And today it's my turn to open my tin of bully beef, so I'd open it, and cut it off into very precise six portions, and your turn to open the biscuits. And you're as happy as Larry because there's 13 biscuits in the pack. So, everyone gets two, but you get three. And they were just like, we used to call them fibro biscuits. They were just like a sheet of fibro. You just, almost impossible to chew. But we enjoyed them.
You knew we were restricted on what we were allowed to take when we left Australia, did you? Right. Our pack consisted of half a blanket, half a towel, two singlets, two shirts, two shorts, half a Dixie. No knife or fork, a spoon. And that was, and a pair of boots. And the other pair of boots went into storage with all the rest of your personal stuff. So you learned to use your spoon as a knife, fork, and spoon.
Because we were sleeping on the ground, we had a cape, for a groundsheet, so that was our waterproof. And especially on the Bulldog-Wau Road, we always invite people to come in and spend the night with us, and share a bit of a meal, if we had one. Because when you sit down for a meal, normally, the mosquitoes are just there in a blanket, and it's impossible to put your food in your mouth without getting one or two mosquitoes to go in too. They're just there. So, when we got a stranger in camp, you couldn't see him for mosquitoes. We're sitting there, not a mosquito anywhere. They loved the new blood.
Stealing cake
So, we often invited different officers in to have a cup of tea or whatever. And because we were actually starving most of the time, I said to the skipper one time, I said "Listen. There's a ship has just come in". Not a ship, but a coastal steamer. I said, "I'm pretty sure they're bringing food in". I said, "What do you reckon we go down and have a look, see what's in the D.I.D.?" The Divisional Issuing Depot, where they store the food. "Good idea".
So, my job I could undo any lock, and I could go, break into anything, climb into windows and all these things. I was a pretty agile sort of a bloke. And so, we broke in this day, and all these boxes of foods there and he's drooling over it. And I said, "Hey listen, what's in those drums there? What are they?" And he said, "I wouldn't have a clue, what is it?" And he got it, rolled it around. And I said, "Hey, that's a cake making firm in Paramatta Road in Sydney." I said, "I bet they're full of cake". So, we prised the lid off one, it was one of those ones, and it's full of these cakes for the officers.
So, we, when we, I was driving the workshop truck, right. So when we broke camp and went somewhere new the workshop truck was positioned in a certain position, right, and then we'd drive it back and we'd dig this big hole underneath the engine, certain size, and we had a bit of a framework, and a canvas top, or a top on it, and we'd put the soil, the grass and that back on, and clods.
And so, when we were going out to borrow things, I'd bring it back and we'd open it up. So, we got these tins of these cakes, about four or five of them, you know, 4- gallon drums, or 5-gallon drums, and I know there was at least three or four. And so we put them in the hole, covered them up, and boy oh boy, the next day all the Provos are round everywhere. And they come into our place, and they said, "We know you blokes would be responsible for that". And we said, "What are you talking about?" Innocent as anything. So anyhow, we used to get, occasionally get a tin of cake sent up by our parents, right, or relatives. And I had one that I used to keep, and I'd get the cake out of the officer's tin and cut it up and put it in my tin.
And if you had an officer or passer-by, we'd shout him in for morning tea or whatever, you know, and lunch. And you'd yell out, "Hey Paddles", because my nickname was Paddles. I had big feet. And my feet were that wide when I went in the army. Never wore shoes or boots in my life. And I went through New Guinea in bare feet, they couldn't get boots to fit me.
He'd say, "Hey Paddles, have you got some of your mother's cake there?" This officer, he'd love to have a top up. And I'd say "Yeah, skipper, I'm pretty sure I've got some, I'll have a look". And of course, I'd make sure there was four pieces, one for the skipper, one for me, and two for the other bloke. And I'd take the tin over and pull it out of its packing, and say "Oh Skipper, look, there's only four pieces there, mate." "Oh never mind, you've had enough, give this bloke two". And I'd say, "What? You're joking". I said, "Do you want two? And he said, "Or more". So, I'd begrudgingly give him his own cake. And we used to go off, well like that, because I'd always have the tin full for us. We'd have a bit of a feed one day.
