Томас Кенэлли: The Widow and Her Hero

But what larks, as Dickens would say! On a night like that a young man – many young men – might mistake their stylishness for immunity from wounds.

Leo wrote an account of this which ended up in his office drawer in Melbourne. It was given to me after the war by Foxhill, one of Leo’s best friends in the bureaucracy of IRD.

Needless to say, it is written in the style of Boy’s Own Adventures . But what else would you expect? To convince the authorities to unleash Cornflakes was for Leo the prelude to our marriage.

Because of the barge anchored beside the destroyer, I wasn’t able to work along the full length of the ship but placed a line of mines under the bows, but deep as my arms would reach – we didn’t want them to be exposed by the falling tide until just before noon the next day. There were actually men welding on the wharf, and the guards in their tin hats were discussing the previous year’s Melbourne Cup which they’d attended baksheesh, for free. Jockey held us good and steady, as I leaned and reached, putting my own arms deep in the water. There was a metallic sort of gargle when the limpets attached. It is a wonderful thing to have an art, as my father used to say when he made my mother laugh. When I had done it, I put my hand on Jockey’s shoulder so we could go.

We had an effortless row out of harbour on the tide. The moon had gone somewhere behind Mount Louisa, and our boats were pretty light now with all the mischief lifted out of them. Outside the boom, we turned south to the picnic ground near the mouth of the Ross River, pulled up our folboats there, and sat eating a breakfast of compo rations, and we would suddenly laugh, remembering something from the night’s business.

The Boss organised accommodation for the men at the naval barracks. He’s insisted that he take Mortmain and me to the officers’ club. So a truck arrives for everyone – the same that dropped us off to the north the other day – how long ago I can barely tell. And so that’s what happened – the officers’ club. I got a very good room with clean sheets – wonderful. And I was so absolutely done in that I didn’t hear all the alarms of the town nearby go off at ten o’clock, as the three highly placed fake mines we’d put along the length of a Dutch freighter rode up out of the water. The area near the wharves was immediately evacuated, I believe – various kids got a day off school. But I slept through all that, and I imagine Doucette was only mildly disturbed.

Some time after three o’clock in the afternoon, a truck pulled up outside the same officers’ club where we were resting up. There was a lot of loud yelling and officious orders given, and boots in the corridors and noise of the kind of soldierly drill provosts are good at. I got up and looked out my door and saw guards and a provost officer at the door of the room where the Boss was getting a rest. Mortmain emerged from his room wearing a singlet and khaki underpants and – I swear – his bloody monocle in his eye.

Boss, he called into Doucette’s room.

I’ve just been arrested, cried the Boss from within. These gentlemen thought I’d slept long enough.

I told you the girl wasn’t legal age, Boss, Mortmain yelled and winked at me, his eye without the glass in it. Could I be arrested with Major Doucette? he asked the provost.

The provost told Mortmain there wasn’t any warrant for him, and Mortmain said he understood that, but they’d missed out on arresting him so many times in the past.

Commander Mortmain is my second, I heard Doucette say. He’ll accompany me. Mortmain looked over at me. And you can come too, Dig, he told me. (He always called me Dig or Digger in an exaggerated British way.) I got dressed. I have to say I didn’t want to miss out on being arrested either.

I have transportation room only for two prisoners, said the provost.

We’ll squeeze up, said the Boss.

They took us to the harbour-master’s office under Castle Rock. There were a collection of ships’ captains in there, and an American colonel. One of the captains was a very angry Dutchman. We should not have dared to touch his ship. He had recently been attacked in New Guinea waters by Japanese aircraft, and he was very jumpy. When he stopped talking Doucette apologised and said that he wanted to alert people to the vulnerability of Australian ports. (I think he’d earned the right to tell that slight untruth.)

And the thin-lipped old Scot who was harbour-master asked him in a brogue that could have ground wheat if he was saying he wanted this outrage reported in the scandal sheets?

There were some naval officers in the harbour-master’s office and they all seemed calm, laughing now and then. But the Boss, Mortmain and myself were careful not to laugh. Mortmain merely shifted that ridiculous monocle around by the muscular force of his cheek and eyebrow as if he was laughing inside. The Australian captain of the Warradgerry spoke up and said he was sure this event was merely intended to be news amongst us.

And Doucette answered, It was a stunt unworthy of public attention, sir, but useful to those who have ears to listen.

The captain seemed quite even-tempered given that fake limpet mines had been put all over his ship. He assumed aloud that Doucette had authorisation for this exercise? The Boss undid the top button of his khaki shirt and brought forth some documents which were wrapped in cellophane. He placed them on the table, not being too definite about who would pick them up first. The naval captain did. When the cellophane was unwrapped, two separate typed letters were visible. The captain read the first one and passed it to the harbour-master. Then read the second and did the same. Then the letters made their way around the Dutch, the three French and the Australian merchant captains and were absorbed one at a time. At the end of the line they were passed to the American colonel. They did not seem to make a huge impression on him, but his face remained neutral throughout the whole thing. He excused himself, stepped through the line of merchant captains and returned the letters to the Australian navy man in charge of the port without comment or thanks. Then he resumed his place in the far corner of the room.

The Australian port commander declared it seemed both General Wavell and General Blamey have given Doucette open slather or carte blanche, and some of the captains might be angry and embarrassed, but a greater good had probably been achieved.

He himself didn’t seem angry and embarrassed.

As we all emerged and the merchant captains walked down the docks to their sundry ships, the captain of the Warradgerry stopped to talk to us. He invited us to attend drinks in the wardroom that evening. Doucette said we would be honoured to. The captain explained why he and the local naval commander were so friendly to us. He’d been telling the old Scot for a long time that a complete boom needed to be laid inside the harbour. But the old harbour-master, who’d held the job since the ’20s, argued some of the native captains coming in from the islands would get themselves caught up in it. The captain said the harbour-master thought it was still 1935. He saluted and so we saluted back like real gents.

For the sun was shining on their faces, and rewarding them, or making promises they could imagine were cast-iron. Leo’s account continues exultant, and shows that even a mock-martial triumph can endow the heroes with the better lines, and a sense of divine assurance; exactly what I would have wanted him to have.

There was no time to go back to the officers’ club before drinks time aboard the Warradgerry. We decided we would fill in the time by going to the Townsville Hotel and having tea on their verandah, and begging a piece of their stationery so that the Boss could write out a list of the ships we had marked. He was doing this while Mortmain and I drank our black tea, exactly right for a warm place like Townsville, bringing out a sort of cleansing sweat. Then we saw the high-ranked American who had been in the harbour-master’s office was standing over us, very thin and tall. His shadow fell over the Boss’s page, and he looked up. The American asked us if it would be an intrusion if he joined us?