Cenotaph

Memories At The

By I. Mcdonald

AT 8 o’clock on Saturday morning, January 23, 1943, a little band of ex- New Guinea women paid tribute to the passing of many friends who made a gallant stand in Rabaul against a superior force of Japanese.

As their representatives placed the wreaths on the Cenotaph, how many pic tures must have come crowding into the thoughts of those taking part in the cere mony. Rabaul, to them, was a symbol of all the places in New Guinea taken by the Japanese.

How could we forget those last drama tic hours, the homes hurriedly left, and with but a few hours to pack! Some of those who came away by sea managed to collect some of their most valued pos sessions: but those who came by plane were allowed to take only 30 pounds of luggage. All of us left behind many things that had taken years to acquire.

A sudden parting like this makes one realise that the things most valued are very often not of the most value.

It is hard to leave a flower garden that has taken months of thought to plan; pot plants coaxed into beauty by “green fingers,” making a dull spot in the house look cool and restful; curtains and cushions so carefully made, all adding a dash of colour.

Then there were the dogs left behind —some not noted for their pedigree, but loved for their companionship and understanding. Who is going to feed them now? Will they get a succulent bone, or will they, too, have to eat paw paw like any kanaka dog? And the cockatoo which had learned to say “Cocky kaikai” —has he flown away to the bush again, wondering where the friend has gone whom he used to follow about? The fowls, the ducks, the chickens, of which we were so proud . . . in short, all the little things which mean home to a woman. All this gone, tem porarily, at least.

But, beyond all this, the awful, ever present, anxiety for those who are away, who are missing . . .

One woman there had lived in a white house, on the water’s edge. Did she think of her home, as I remembered it . . . with the circular drive, the front door which you entered between two huge blue bowls filled with flowers, the lovely garden terraced down to a rock swimming pool? Surely, she was seeing the scene of that first early morning alarm of approaching enemy planes. Her husband had had time to run to his shel ter, dressed only in his shorts. Then the bombs had fallen, and all that was left was a heap of ruins. She had heard that her husband had escaped to Rabaul, a few miles away. Since then there has been no news. Except rumours. The rumours become news, and each contra dicts the other.

Then, that young wife. She must surely be imagining her husband, as she said good-bye to him, in their home, with all the treasures they had taken such pride in collecting, when she had hoped that he would not be too lonely without her. They had both been so young, and gay and happy. She has had one letter since, written as a prisoner of war . . . cold, unreal.

Another sees her husband waiting calmly for the disaster which he knows is inevitable. He had a chance to get away, but he must stay, for his duty’s sake. She had hacj only one letter from

him, as a prisoner of war.

Another was surely trying to recon struct the scene in their plantation home, when her husband was wondering what to do. She had heard, since, that he had decided to join some others who were endeavouring to get away in a schooner.

Since then . . . silence.

For another, there had been months of anxiety and waiting, when her husband was missing. To-day, she is offering up a silent prayer of thanksgiving. They are together again, after his eventful escape.

Another must see an island, far away from Rabaul, where the clear water over the coral reefs, changing from palest green to deepest emerald, makes a last ing picture. On the edge of thsir plan

tation, near a sheltered harbour, she and her husband recently planned and built an ideal tropical home. She is here; he is in the Air Force.

Another has a vision of a home high up in the mountains, where the climate is temperate and southern flowers grow in profusion; and another thinks of a home, higher still in the mountains, where the climate is crisp and cool, and a log fire is necessary at night.

One whose husband and son are both missing wonders what they are doing, while she holds her head high, with fine courage.

They all carry on bravely, waiting, hoping for the day when they and their menfolk will return to re-build all that has been destroyed.

R. H. Garvey Now in Nyasaland

THERE is word of Mr. Ronald H. Gar vey, who filled several high adminis trative posts in the South Pacific in recent years and who, in 1942, was trans ferred from Ocean Island (where he had been acting as Resident Commissioner of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony) to Nyasaland, in Central Africa.

Mr. and Mrs. Garvey (she is a daugh ter of the well-known Dr. McGusty, of Suva) and their two children had a long and weary wait in New Zealand and Australia for transportation to Central Africa; but they got there, eventually.

They find the country, with its moun tains, vast lakes and high, cold plateaux, very different from the countless humid islands of the Central Pacific, but they seem to have settled down happily.

The practical “R.H.” sends along a list of "prices current” in Nyasaland as an indication of living conditions there. One notes, sombrely, that beef is only 6d. per pound, fowls can be bought for 1/3 each, eggs are 1 - per dozen, potatoes are 2id. per pound, one penny will buy three let tuces or one paw-paw, sugar is 4d. per pound, tea is 1 3 per pound, 50 cigarettes may be bought for 1/3, pint bottles of beer cost 9d. Whisky is shown in the list at 11/6 per bottle —but there is a grim addendum: "None—R.H.G.” From this Pacific region of high temperatures, mur dering Japs and soaring prices, Nyasa land looks like Paradise.