Томас Кенэлли: The Widow and Her Hero

At sea by night they had taken off and dumped some of the Pengulling ’s bullet-resistant cladding, and were thankful for the good weather to that point, for they saw that the armour’s two tons had reduced the freeboard to a mere ten inches, and that would not be enough in stormy sea. Now they rode higher but would splinter to matchwood under any attack.

The American rear-admiral at Potshot was very kind to them and, convinced that their destination was the Japanese naval base at Surabaya in Java, he told Doucette solemnly that everyone believed the hopeless little vessel was bound for Fremantle. In any case, Pengulling was repainted here with camouflage grey.

There was a load of gear awaiting them, flown from Melbourne by IRD. New British-built folboats, spare parts for the engine, anti-glare glasses, binoculars, etc. Leo would later tell me that he was a bit amazed when Doucette declared he was going to drop inland a little way and see some of his relatives who had a cattle station east of Exmouth, and a transport plane flying to Perth agreed to drop him there. Some first cousin of his from Ireland had settled there.

Mortmain looked over the new British folboats with Leo and said that the stitching of the canvas was appalling, a real wartime economy job. We used to laugh at Japanese manufacture, Mortmain told Leo. But he and Leo and their partners went for a warm-up paddle of twenty miles or so, and suddenly the stitching meant nothing. For Leo, excitement and daring would prevail over any deficiencies of thread.

How often did these men mention their women, I wonder. Mortmain his – as I would discover – wily, angular wife, or Leo his fiancée? I never thought about it at the time, I presumed we were talked about, boasted of, envisaged constantly. The older I get the more I doubt it. It was simply that they were engaged in an all-absorbing task.

Doucette returned from his cousin’s cattle station, and he and his men took to their little fishing boat again and sailed north out of Exmouth Gulf. The forward hold was full of armaments and other gear, and there were flaps in the superstructure to enable men to take up battle stations in an emergency. The horns of a submarine supply and maintenance ship USS Wagram sent this little grey sliver of a vessel on its way. It made half a mile before the engine instantly overheated and choked. Some mysterious components named the centrifugal pump and the coupling key of the intermediate propeller shaft had broken. The Americans had Pengulling towed to Wagram ’s side, and the engine and most of the drive shaft were hauled aboard and worked on. The Americans replaced the centrifugal pump.

When they left Potshot, thinking that they were going to Fremantle, the American mechanics earnestly told Doucette to nurse the engine along.

And now our voyagers were away on an afternoon tide again, the opinion being that the new pump would last them a long time. Interestingly, as they headed north-east along the desert coast, once the course and rudder were set, Doucette read a little brown book, Homer’s Odyssey , translated by Chapman. The kid leather cover was a scuffed brown, and he had won it as a prize at Eton. Tea and beer had both been spilt on it. The men watched him as if he were trolling for some code to their present situation.

Certainly, a great storm worthy of The Odyssey hit them that September night. The decks were awash with fluorescent foam, and the Pengulling was a mere tub before waves which Leo said were big as blocks of flats, and came up behind, and lifted the little boat high above a nauseating trench of water, dropped it in, awaited its emergence, and began the process again. All night, the water across the deck was waist-deep. Mortmain chopped a hole in the hull to allow the volume of deck water to escape. Above or below, sleep was not possible. Most of the muscular ratings and soldiers were sick, and lay on their sides helpless, humiliated so soon. Leo too was sick, but in a practical way, stepping outside the wheelhouse, retching, coming in again with a clear mind for the next little while.

It was when the storm abated and the sky grew brilliant again the next afternoon, and the men returned to being hungry, that Doucette told them what he and Leo and Rufus and a few others already knew: where they were going. Leo’s partner Rubinsky, for example, had not known until then. He and the others were astonished and enlarged by the news.

Singapore. Three boat crews and one in reserve. Nine limpets per folboat, as at Townsville, but live ones now. After the exhilaration, for the meat of the long journey, there were only three books on board – the novel The Sheik , an erotic story tame by the standards of today, that little leather copy of the Chapman edition of Ulysses , and a black-covered devotional book, The Imitation of Christ , by Thomas à Kempis, which belonged to Sergeant Pat Bantry, and which only Bantry had any interest in. Most social life took place on the after-deck behind the wheelhouse, which was adequately covered by the tarpaulin to enable gatherings including those men whose big hands and feet and large features deprived them of any chance of resembling an Indonesian or a Malay. Mortmain told stories of life on teak plantations in Burma and Malaya. The malice and whimsy of elephants figured a lot in them. Able Seaman Jockey Rubinsky told stories about his Russian father and uncles in Bondi Junction, a location where Hitler was unlikely to disrupt their energies. Meanwhile, the man keeping watch stood on the gravity tank within the canopied area and stuck his head through a hole in the awning roof.

For a time off the north coast of Australia, Pengulling had aircraft cover. But even this early the navigation officer was surly and wanted a drink. He snapped at Jockey’s tales. He did not get the point, or didn’t have the mental space to, and expressed a hatred of Jews which Leo said wouldn’t have been out of place in a Nazi. A distance grew between him and the other travellers, not because he badmouthed Jews but because he was not far behind in badmouthing everyone and wanting whisky.

At this stage, going to the fair, Doucette did not permit too much conversation. He had already told them he hated regular soldiering and been expansive on his un-regimental sailing adventures in the South China Seas. But now he used all the regular military tricks, filling the hours with the business of dismantling and reassembling weapons, of watches and drills. If that wasn’t enough, his occasional lectures on the Punic Wars were very successful. Having heard that fantastic word Singapore , they did not worry any more about propeller shafts or seas. It was as if the augustness of the target itself, and the supreme dangers it stood for, would keep them safe from lesser issues like drive shafts and rogue waves.

Approaching Bali they saw Japanese planes flying high, with intentions to inspect and destroy bigger shipping than them. From now on they would wear sarongs – all uniforms were put away, and they covered their bodies with brown stain. Leo says the stuff was utterly lacking in fragrance and grew smelly on the body. The Japanese flag was raised at the stern – it had been sewn up by someone’s wife in Melbourne. When other small ships were met in the fringes of the Indonesian archipelagos, most of the crew concealed themselves in the wheelhouse or below, or under the awning, while Doucette, himself slight of body with delicately designed hands, and fluent in Malay, together with the navigator and swarthy, small-limbed Mandarin-speaking Seaman Rubinsky were to remain visible.

There is a photograph of Mortmain, his monocle still in his eye socket, his body streaky brown, his lantern jaw a frank tribute to his ancestry, and of Leo, similarly bare-chested, standing together before the wheelhouse wearing their sarongs, demonstrating the hopeless innocence and valour of the idea that all that sea could be covered without the subterfuge being easily seen through. But they did take wise precautions. All smoking was forbidden, lest cigarette butts cast overboard might serve the Japanese navy as a clue to their infiltration. Toilet paper could not be used – it was too dangerous a clue as well. At night there was total blackout. Garbage and the leavings of their mess table were put in sealed tins which the men cast overboard and then filled with holes using Sten guns with silencers.