Storm at Sunset Read online

  “Oh yes, certainly. As Japanese fortunes faded, they introduced Indonesian conscription and trained local troops. Possibly to help resist allied counter-invasion. Maybe with an eye to the longer term. When the Japs were eventually defeated, many of them handed over their weapons to these newly established Indonesian platoons – or simply abandoned them for god-knows-who to pick up. And of course we’re now uncertain how many of those local troops remain in the official military and how many have gone guerilla.”

  This put a whole new complexion – added massive complication to – what Macnamara had, until now, thought was going to be a relatively straightforward mission. “What about the remaining Japs on the island?”

  “That’s another good question, with two answers. Maybe even three.”

  “Go on.”

  “Well, we suspect there are 20,000 or so of them still here, and most of those we’ve encountered are fully resigned to having lost the war. They’re hanging around waiting to be repatriated. Their government, just like ours, is desperately short of transport, so like our own people there are thousands waiting for their turn to be shipped home. In the meantime they’ve submitted themselves to our command with little or no resistance, and we’re putting them to work around the airfield.”

  “Good grief!”

  “So don’t be surprised to find Japanese amongst the teams loading your aircraft.”

  “That will take some getting used to.”

  “They’re good workers and extremely well disciplined, so we’ll use them while we can. But there are of course a few Japs who resent the way things have turned out.”

  “Can’t say I blame them.”

  “No, I understand their sentiments too. But the trouble is that some of them are suspected of going over to the side of the insurgents. Lending their expertise and certainly handing over their weapons in a bid to stir up trouble for us.”

  “That’s not good.”

  “Damned right. And what it means is that we can never have 100 per cent confidence in those who are working for us. In other words we need to keep up our guard continuously.”

  He continued. “Java’s a massive country, and these camps are spread far and wide. Japan didn’t comply with the Geneva Convention in publishing names of internees and locations of prisons. So we’ve got our work cut out to even find the POWs let alone get them out – especially in the face of opposition from the independence fighters. Who, I might add, are strongly suspected of slowing the whole release process down with a view to possibly using some of the unfortunate prisoners as bargaining chips.”

  “Phew.” Wing Commander Macnamara drew thoughtfully on his pipe.

  “Hence the desperate need for your people. Having the Daks here will hugely accelerate the work.”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Anyway, our government might have totally underestimated the size of the task. Some of the POW camps are extremely remote, so even reaching them is no picnic. And, given what I’ve already said about the independence fighters, neither is it a question of merely walking into the camps and releasing the internees. In many cases we’re having to fight our way in and forcibly free the inmates. And of course the additional time and turmoil all adds to the likelihood of the poor old prisoners being either killed by their captors or starving to death. The army just hasn’t the resources to do the job and is relying heavily on the Indian troops they have available. But even that’s not enough, so going back to what I was saying about the Japanese, it might surprise you to know that on a few occasions Jap troops have been involved in combat operations – on our side! Fighting alongside Brits, Indians and Gurkhas against Indonesians.”

  “How extraordinary. And amazing that no word of this has got out. I’d certainly heard nothing.”

  “No, and you won’t either. It’s a horribly confused mixture. Our political masters are far from happy with the arrangement, but they realise that there’s no real alternative. And our troops don’t like it at all, quite naturally. Even though these Japanese appear to be quite happily fighting for us now, can you imagine how uneasy it must make a British soldier to be lined up alongside a recent enemy? To have a Jap beside him with a loaded gun? You’d be continually looking over your shoulder, wouldn’t you? Well, I know I would.”

  “No doubt of that at all.”

  “The Yanks dislike the arrangements too, so you can see how awkward it could get if all that became general news.”

  “I see.”

  “In fact that leads me on to another complication. Our American cousins would rather we weren’t here at all. Although responsibility for the East Indies has only just been transferred from the US forces to our South-East Asia Command, we suspect that this is only a temporary measure. Not only do the Americans see this part of the world as something of an extension of their own Pacific backyard, but we reckon that one of their overall aims is to discourage – or even hinder – any possibility of Britain resuming its pre-war imperial position in the world.”

  “Fat chance of that. The impression I get from afar is that, despite our nominally winning the war, we’re on our knees.”

  “Yes. Financially, militarily and politically, the cupboard is bare. And I suspect that over the coming years the larger part of our Empire will unravel. With or without the encouragement of the Yanks. But what it means for us on the front line is that our poor little force here is the meat in everybody’s sandwich. What’s going on in Java is a part of a very tangled web of military and political intrigue. Not least the involvement of the Indian troops – what with the current politics of India and all that. So all this explains to a great extent why there’s little publicity about what we’re doing in Java.”

  “You’re right there. Having spent the past few years in the jungles of India and Burma, I’m a bit short of newspaper gossip anyway. But I certainly had no inkling of the true situation here.”

  “Just as the troops you’ve been supporting in Burma are coming to be known as the forgotten army, there’s so little knowledge of what we’re doing here that I suspect our work here will come to be remembered – if indeed it’s remembered at all – as an operation that never was. As far as our people at home are concerned, this post-war Far-Eastern business is quite literally invisible.”

  The briefing was coming to an end, and the group of men refilled their glasses.

  “Cheers,” offered the staff officer. “Oh and by the way, did I mention that the acronym coming to be used for this type of work is RAPWI? Repatriation of prisoners of war and internees. That’s the title we’ll grow used to hearing.”

  They all nodded, and he continued. “Anyway, I hope that’s put some flesh on the bones for you and will help you to understand the conditions in which your people will have to work. It’s going to be hard. I don’t know how long it will take us to free all these poor people, but it’s estimated that there are probably 100,000 still interned at dozens of sites scattered around the Far East.”

  “How many on Java?”

  “We just don’t know. But almost certainly tens of thousands, of whom the majority will have to be got out by your Dakotas. Quite simply, we’ll go on until the job’s done.”

  They raised their glasses and the meeting broke up into informal groups. During the ensuing discussions Macnamara learned that there were Brits among the internees they’d be bringing out, but that by far the greatest proportion of the people were of Malayan, Dutch and Australian origin.

  In the back of his mind was the knowledge that his own long-serving airmen needed to be repatriated too – that his own people were feeling that, instead of setting course for home now that the war was over, they’d be engaged on this new, open-ended mission. But long experience had taught him that there is always an optimum time for laying issues on the table and that, in the light of the complexity of the task that had just been described to him, now was not the time to air this particular concern. He would work away quietly at it over the coming weeks, but his main job now was to
pass on enough of what he’d been told to provide his airmen with the motivation they would need. They were good people, and he was relieved in a way that the nature of the work ahead would appeal to their human decency – would help to convince them of the imperative for their new task.

  CHAPTER 12

  It was nearly dark as John Haley commenced his patrol, and the last light was fading from the western horizon as he passed the vent which led up from the forepeak. He held his breath at the rancid waft coming up from the heads. Of all the areas in the stinking old tub, the toilets were the worst. The detention cells were beside the heads, and the airmen always said that it was the foul stink there, more than anything else, that kept them honest. A wry smile crossed John’s features as he recalled the near miss he’d had a week ago after mistaking the time and turning up late for a duty. Now he needed to clear that stench from his nostrils, and he hurried onward.

  It was pitch black now and he was out of sight of the bridge. He found a sheltered corner and lit a cigarette. Strictly forbidden – but that didn’t matter now. In fact, he thought wryly, it was pretty out of character for him – breaking rules. He considered that he’d generally kept to the straight and narrow; he’d tried in his quiet way to do an adequate job. And to be a good family man, he also thought. It would have been pure bad luck if he’d received detention for being late for a duty, as disobedience wasn’t his way. Perhaps he’d been too good, he thought – too straight, too quiet. Perhaps not daring or exciting enough. Maybe not sufficiently interesting.

  Anyway, it was too late now to change, and in any case he was in the grip of the service with no opportunity to alter the course of events. He needed to be at home, but telling his superiors he had family troubles back in England that needed his attention had never proved a fruitful course. He could imagine the reaction if he’d made another approach: “Family troubles? Need to go home? Airman, we’ve all got family troubles and we all need to go home. Request denied. Get back to your duties.”

  He had no more than a hazy idea what this squadron he was going to join was supposed to be doing in Java. No-one had felt inclined to explain to him why he was being sent there. He felt like a stick being washed downstream. In his childhood, he and the other boys had had races with lolly sticks in the stream which ran through the local park. He smiled faintly. Funny – he’d always seemed to lose those races too. His stick had always seemed to get stuck in the weeds at the stream’s edges, while those of his friends had raced serenely down the centre of the channel. In his mind he felt himself to be a loser. He was being flushed further and further downstream by the system. There was nothing he could do.

  He finished his cigarette, stepping forward to throw the stub into the sea. He stood at the rail. It was warm, the sea surprisingly still. He looked over and considered for a moment. It wouldn’t hurt. He was pleased about that, and not just for himself. By some disconnected reasoning, for his mother too. She’d be glad when she heard that it hadn’t hurt.

  He heaved himself over the rail and stood on the narrow strip of deck outboard. He was near the stern; he could see the luminous glow of the ship’s wake, and he knew that he couldn’t have been more out of sight if he’d tried. He was certain there would be no interference. He took a deep draft of the warm tropical air, and then decided that it would be quicker if his lungs were empty. Wouldn’t that be true? He really didn’t know, but he thought so, anyway. He breathed out.

  He leaned over and was gone. Unconscious before he’d finished falling, he hit the water with barely a splash. Aircraftman John Haley’s unhappy war was over.

  ****

  The Esperance Bay sailed serenely on, ploughing its lonely furrow towards Java. Forty-five minutes later, as the watch changed, Haley’s absence was noted. It took a further 20 minutes to search all the likely spots – the nooks and crannies where sailors had been known over the years to snatch forty winks while on duty – before he was reported missing. On the advice of the ship’s captain, the senior RAF officer on board agreed that the next logical step was to check Haley’s belongings for clues as to his disappearance. And from that point it took no more than five minutes to discover, from the letters in his kitbag, his likely fate.

  “Look at this.” The sergeant in charge of Haley’s shift was studying one of the pages. “A Dear John letter. Literally.”

  “That clinches it then, I suppose.” The corporal accompanying him peered over his shoulder. “Dear John. How ironic. And very sad.”

  They carefully repacked the meagre pile of belongings and took the evidence to their senior officer on the bridge.

  “Should we turn back and search?” The RAF commander already knew the answer but nevertheless had to ask the question.

  The ship’s captain considered for a moment. “When was he last seen?”

  “At least an hour and a half ago.”

  “Well then, I would suggest there’s no point at all. Even at the stately pace this old lady manages we’d have to retrace our tracks at least 12 miles. There’s a powerful current here in the straits and we’d stand little or no chance of hitting the spot in the dark. In any case, bodies don’t always float. And you saw the signals we received this afternoon as well as I did. There are mines around, as well as more than a suspicion that there could be Japanese submarines still on the prowl – crews who haven’t got the message that the war’s over. That’s why we’re wearing no lights. My job is to get you to Batavia, and I’m afraid that doesn’t allow us to turn around on a no-hope search.”

  “I agree. It’s not as though it was an accident, either. He’d had a Dear John letter; his wife was heading off to the States with a GI she’d met. It seems to have been thoroughly premeditated. We continue.”

  ****

  Aircraftman Haley was listed in the log of the SS Esperance Bay as missing, presumed dead. There would be no funeral as such, but the ship’s company would gather the following afternoon for a church parade. As he completed his clear-out of Haley’s bed space, the hard-bitten shift sergeant wondered to himself what had been wrong with the man. All right, he had girl trouble back home. But of how many thousands of servicemen could that be said?

  And hadn’t their mission meant anything to him? Unsympathetically, the sergeant rammed the remaining belongings into a kit bag and prepared to close the chapter. An unimaginative individual, the NCO was oblivious to how little understanding Haley – and indeed he himself – had of the importance of the work they were destined for in Java. But the sergeant was unerring in his final mental observation: John Haley would not be long missed.

  In his cabin, the RAF commander wrote a letter of condolence to the man’s parents. It was one of many such notes he’d composed over recent years, and writing them didn’t get any easier with time. He thought long and hard about whether Haley’s wife should receive one, too. In the end he decided against it. He leaned back and sighed. The airman had wanted to go home. Well, didn’t they all want to go home? For a moment he softened, wondering what, if anything, they could have done for John Haley. But he had no ready answer and the question didn’t linger long in his mind. He sealed the envelope and, laying it in his out tray, moved on to other business.

  CHAPTER 13

  Kemajoran. 31 Squadron’s new operating base was an extraordinary scene. Acres of mud from the never-ending downpours. The evidence of three years of Japanese occupation, and of the end game, everywhere clear to see. Wrecked aircraft, sitting like rusty skeletons in grotesque attitudes. A patched-up runway. Makeshift buildings in various stages of dilapidation.

  In every direction there was frantic activity, at first sight chaotic. But closer inspection revealed order being restored. Wreckage was being bulldozed away into the jungle and aircraft parking areas were being repaired and swept. Tented domestic campsites, cookhouses and mess halls were already in operation, and hundreds of airmen were employing their hard-won expertise, gained over long wartime service, making themselves comfortable in the field. Broken runways were be
ing repaired by gangs of Japanese labourers, and aircraft were landing and taking off. Thunderbolt and Mosquito fighter-bombers. Spitfire reconnaissance aircraft. And now over 20 Dakotas, lined up alongside the rapidly expanding tent city which would be the reception area for the internees. There was a field hospital. There were transit huts which would be used by the refugees prior to their onward movement to the port of Tanjong Priok. And around the perimeter the two RAF Regiment squadrons were setting up their airfield defences. The Royal Air Force was in business.

  And in their customary way the boys were settling into their new and unfamiliar accommodation. While about half the complement were camping on the airfield site, the lucky remainder were downtown. Or at least they considered themselves lucky, even though the housing was on the run-down side, if only for the novelty value of living in real housing after so long in the field.

  As they’d surveyed their new surroundings from the back of the trucks taking them to their temporary lodgings, they’d registered the fine, straight roads and canals which emulated the Amsterdam that had been the inspiration for Batavia’s foundation. Although the place had lost a good deal of its grandeur during the years of occupation.

  “Arthur, I hate to say it but wasn’t that a corpse we just passed by those canal sluice gates?” Chota was craning over his shoulder to take another look at what exactly had caught his eye.

  “If it was a corpse, my little friend, it didn’t look like any I’ve ever seen.” Brownlow was doubtful. “Or perhaps it’s been dead for a long time.”

  “Disgusting, anyway. Although it kind of worries me to think that perhaps the figures they gave us at the initial briefing might have some truth behind them.”

  “What figures were those then?”

  “Well they told us that sixty per cent of the city was a no-go area to Europeans; and that even the remainder was high risk.”

  “Don’t believe a word of it. You should know by now not to listen to the scare stories those staff wallahs have to tell. They’re only trying to make sure we’re safely tucked up early in bed and not getting into any sort of trouble down town.”