We set off in the morning with the patrol sitting on flat open-sided wagons towed by a tractor over a bumpy, dirt road. The three wagons carried the 37 of us and all our gear. It was a bit noisy, crowded and hard on the buttocks but the coconut plantation with the ocean in the background provided nice scenery and it beats walking with a heavy backpack. After about an hour we parted company with our transport and began a four hour walk along the grey sandy beach to Karama. Good surf over a metre high was rolling in from its break about 150m offshore in ideal surfing weather. As I had not seen surf like that for over 18 months, I was tempted to go swimming. Having passed Silo, we overnighted on the outskirts of the village of Waima where I was told a child had been taken by a crocodile two months earlier while she played in a creek’s mouth on the beach.
The next day it took us an hour’s walk to reach Karama which was situated on the mouth of a river estuary. The policeman suggested water transport and I readily agreed. He spoke to the locals and arranged for a guide and canoes to take the patrol up the Karova Creek. We departed Karama by dugout canoe. Four soldiers and their gear per canoe paddled by a local went up this creek in style. With ten canoes making their way up the creek it looked like a scene from the Jungle Jim films I had watched at the Saturday afternoon matinee sessions as a boy 10 years earlier. The creek was about 100 metres wide and bordered on both sides by dense dark green mangroves. Every now and then a bird made a raucous call from the foliage. As it was warm and sunny, I was completely relaxed and enjoying the tranquillity of the occasion when a loud splash broke my dreaming. At this shock, my immediate thought was that a crocodile was attacking “Jungle John” in his canoe, but the constable told me it was only a turtle. After 45 minutes we had been disembarked onto the bank where the track started. The canoe paddlers were paid off from the $100 float in 10cent and 20cent coins that were carried equally between Sgt Guri and me that was to be used for such purposes. We then began our walk through the jungle before making camp in the bush near a clear-water running creek.
Once the camp had been established with an off ground wooden stretcher made of bush timber covered by a hutchie, washing in the creek and cooking became the priority. Boiled brown rice accompanied by canned meat became the standard fare for the next three weeks. With the money float, we would buy fruits and vegetables, mostly taro (yams) kau kau (sweet potatoes), maize, and bananas, from the local villages to supplement the ration- pack food. Occasionally in our walk, we would come across a patch of “tuleef” which looks like a stinging nettle but had a spinach flavour and the men scooped up this tuleef with great delight as it went well with the rice.
Whilst the meals were being prepared, I would try and work out our position on the map and then radio our location to the company headquarters in Wau and comment on any relevant matters with Greg. Our position was a bit of guesswork as in the jungle there are few geographical features, other than rivers, to accurately plot your position. I would then talk to the Corporals and the men and see if there were any problems and generally make sure everybody was happy.
Dignitaries and supplies
On day four of the patrol we reached the village of Eboini which was not shown on the map but was located near to where the village of Hempe was shown. It was quite common for the local people to relocate their village every couple of years as their gardens became less fertile and for health reasons. It was unusual for the name of the village to change. On our approach the village head man or ‘Luluai” (identified by his “Salvation Army” hat and his “sheriff’s” badge that he wore on a cord around his neck) and his younger deputy head man or “Tultul” came out to greet us. The old grey haired luluai was chewing betel nut which made his mouth, lips and teeth red. It also rotted his teeth to blackened pillars. The tultul dug the luluai in the ribs to remind him of his manners and the luluai turned his head and spat out a large blob of red juice which landed blood-like on the side of the path about four metres from me. I found this ironic and rather humbling, as two months before the Battalion had played host to Lord Casey, the Governor General of Australia, and we second lieutenants were left to entertain the GG until the brass hats arrived. We had to be on our best behaviour and did a bit of grovelling over a cup of tea with biscuits. A great experience entertaining a GG and now here I was being treated like a visiting dignitary. Little did they know I was relieved to find some sign of civilisation no matter that it was fairly primitive?
Eboini was a typical native village situated in a jungle clearing about 100 metres wide by 120 metres long where all the vegetation was removed to reveal a red clay hardpan. There were 14 huts for the families to live in and a long community house for village meetings and so forth. Two large vegetable gardens were situated on the outskirts of the village. As part of my given duties, I had to make a sketch map of the villages and make notes of any interesting features of the villages that I found on the patrol which were duly recorded in my patrol log. The Kerema kiap had suggested I look at the village books that the luluai kept in each village. It was the kiap’s record of the village demographic statistics. In some cases, it was two to three years since the last kiap’s visit. The further away from Kerema the less frequent the visit and after Bulldog my request to see the books were given a blank “what is he talking about?” stare.
In most of the villages we entered, the small children would look at me with their mouths agape and a hesitant look in their eyes. I felt that I was the first white skinned man they had seen and that the stories of their parents to make them behave were true. I was not the only unusual looking man on the patrol as the soldiers came from all over PNG. The Bougainvillians were jet black skinned, the Highlanders were pink skinned and chubby if from the east or tall if from the west, Tolais from New Britain were brown skinned and round faced with blonde / gingery hair, Sepiks were brown, small and wiry. With our varied skin colours and shaped heads, we must have looked like a circus to the locals.
At Eboini we paid off our guide and engaged another to take us to the next village of Bakoda.