Wx3939

The butterflies in Papua New Guinea are so pretty. Give them a waterfall, open space and sunshine, and they will dance in the mist all day long, shimmering and iridescent. I saw a butterfly before the darkness took me.1

We had been trying to evade the encircling Japanese for three days. All of us were down with tropical fevers. Had no food. Trying to avoid firefights, all we had were Enfields, no B.A.R. No medicines. Water only when it rained. It hadn’t rained.2

Imagine, a Private leading Privates. No officer, No Sergent. Not even a Corporal. I’d turned down my Corporal’s stipes so that I wouldn’t have to lead. Bleeding war. Here we were, a squad; sick, lost, hiding, hungry, and mortally afraid of the Nips. No map, no compass. And the others expected me to lead them! We crawled under some bushes in a small ravine. We didn’t talk. Too tired, too sick, too close to the enemy; we were about done in. We didn’t want to get killed; but we all felt like dying, right there, right then.3

I remembered my mother praying when I was a child. Praying for food on the table. Praying for safety from her drunken husband. I’d never prayed. But I prayed that day. 4

“God. If you exist, please help these men. You can have me if you want, just get these men safe to our lines.”5

The fever took me, like it did all the others, and I slept. Slept I don’t know how long. Days? When I woke up….well, I woke up. And so did the rest of the squad. We all felt refreshed, and in a whispered conversation agreed to push on.6

After another hour of slow movement through the bush, a mere 100 meters in distance, we entered our battalion box, and were all safe. Relatively speaking.7

A couple of us were invalided back to Moresby with too many different fevers to count. Eventually I was sent home. My war was over. I sat out the rest of it guarding Italian POWs. Not exactly hard yakka. Put em on a truck. Drive to a farm. Watch them pick and pack vegetables. Drive em home at the end of the day. I met my wife at one of those farms.8

We went back to Papua New Guinea after the war, for fourteen years. I especially liked the butterflies in the Gimi Valley.9