Fear Drive My Feet Read Online Free Page B

lie straight ahead. But they assured me that the path led to the Markham
River, and they struck off confidently up the watercourse. After a few minutes’ scrambling
over the stones, I saw Bob’s there in front of us.
    I shall describe this jungle camp carefully, since for me its atmosphere, its people,
and its life sum up one important phase of the infinitely varied, infinitely monotonous
activity called war.
    The place was named after its founder, Bob Griffiths, who had built it at the time
of the Japanese invasion. He was a member of the New Guinea Volunteer Rifles, a tiny
local militia of a few hundred, the only force to meet the assault of many thousands
of Japanese. In fact, so few men had we that all the Australian posts at that time
were called only by some familiar name – Bob’s, Mac’s, Kirkland’s, and so on. Nobody
asked who Bob or Mac might be – they were known to all.
    From where our little party halted, at the foot of an enormous ficus-tree, I could
see that the camp consisted of a dozen or so rough huts thatched with sago-palm fronds,
and left without walls for the sake of coolness. They were not in a clearing, but
sprawled about in the thickest forest. So intent had their builders been on concealment
from the air that the huts themselves had taken on the impress of the builders’ desires,
and had a furtive look about them, almost as if they knew they were supposed to
be hiding.
    The tall trees, with their tangled superstructure of creepers, quite blotted out
the sun, and I knew that even at midday the place would have the appearance of being
in a green-tinted twilight. Now, towards dusk, it seemed infinitely sombre and forbidding.
The ground was damp and spongy, and a vague smell of decay pervaded everything.
The jungle tolerated this man-made excrescence, it seemed, confident that in a little
while it would be swallowed up without a trace.
    Everything in this little settlement was damp. Clothes and blankets soon acquired
a clammy feeling that was impossible to remove, for one dared not sun them in a patch
of grassland not far away, lest they be spotted by the Japanese reconnaissance planes
that often flew low overhead. Blowflies buzzed lazily everywhere, and every couple
of days the blankets were fly-blown.
    No breeze stirred the air. The smoke from the cooking fires hung motionless in a
blue haze among the trees, and over the whole area hung a fearful silence, too vast
to be broken noticeably by the voices of the forty or fifty men who comprised the
garrison. Even the rattle of gunfire was subdued by this uneasy quiet.
    Gaunt, pallid men in ragged green uniforms were moving about the camp doing various
chores – cleaning weapons, sewing up torn clothes – while one directed the work of
a party of natives who were repairing the roof of a hut. Quite close to me, a smart
squad of native police were lined up on parade beneath the trees. A tall serious-faced
man with a close-clipped moustache was quietly calling the roll, sucking hard on
a chipped and blackened pipe between names. This, I knew, must be John Clarke, an
old New Guinea hand who was in charge of the police and the native carriers at Bob’s.
When he had finished his roll-call I walked across to him and told him who I was.
    He gave me a friendly smile and shook my hand warmly. ‘I heard you were coming. I’m
very pleased to see you. Now, I’ll get you fixed up with a place to sleep, and you
can have a clean-up, and we’ll have a yarn after that.’
    ‘Thanks, John. It’ll be good to get these clothes off and into some clean ones. I
think I’ll have a swim in the Wampit to cool off. Is it safe to go in here?’
    ‘Pretty safe. But don’t go too far out into the current. There don’t seem to be many
crocodiles around.’
    As we talked, John had been leading the way to a long hut containing only one or
two beds.
    ‘You’ll be pretty private here,’ he said. ‘I’ll get a couple of boys to put your
bed-sail up at this end, where