Canny Mackenzie

Copyright Oggbashan July 2021

The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

This is a work of fiction. The events described here are imaginary; the settings and characters are fictitious and are not intended to represent specific places or living persons.

Some of the conversations are assumed to be in a New Guinea tribal language but retold in English.

 

Stewart ‘Canny’ Mackenzie was a re-tread Major in the Australian Army. His extended family had emigrated to Australia when he was thirteen years old. His father and grandfather had been gillies- game wardens – on a highland deer shooting estate. But as a result of death duties the estate had been sold to City of London bankers who were more interested in the number of kills rather than the stalking the Scots owners had practised.

Stewart’s father, helped by Stewart’s grandfather, was now warden of an extensive National Park. Stewart had won a scholarship to an Australian Grammar school. He joined the Cadet Force and by the time he left school was the Head Cadet, as he became at university where he studied anthropology on an Army sponsorship, going on to Officer Training.

His stalking skills, taught by his father and grandfather, were legendary. He worked in the remote highlands of New Guinea, embedded with a small local tribe. His maternal grandfather had been a blacksmith and also taught those skills to Stewart. Stewart had a forge at his base where he made items for the tribe such as knives, arrowheads etc. But his nickname of ‘canny’ came from his love of canned Australian Lager. His supply packages consisted of cans of lager more than anything else. With the empty cans he made items for the tribe such as cups, water bottles, plates etc. He also had bottles of beer but resupply by air drop was difficult without breaking the bottles, so he preferred the newly introduced cans.

His role in the Army was to train soldiers in Jungle warfare, which he did successfully until 1938 when he decided to retire and concentrate on anthropology, living with ‘his’ tribe in New Guinea and drinking canned lager.

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1n 1939 he was recalled from Army Reserve to his former role as a trainer for jungle warfare, which he did mainly based at Port Moresby. His war might have continued at a slow pace until 1942 when the Japanese invaded new Guinea.

He asked, and was sent, to join his tribe in the highlands, to watch for Japanese advances. He wasn’t sure how the tribe would react to the Japanese. They might ignore them. They had no loyalty to Australia or the British Empire and would probably stay neutral but might be persuaded to watch the Japanese in exchange for goods such as knives etc.

After a few months during which the Japanese had not come very far inland, the Japanese made a terrible mistake. Two of the tribe’s grandmothers were gathering nuts when six Japanese soldiers found them. The women were raped before being used for bayonet practice and left disembowelled. That changed the tribe’s attitude overnight. The wanted to kill as many Japanese as possible and asked Stewart for arms. he refused to give them rifles but made crossbows for them, more powerful than their existing bows. He led them to ambush Japanese patrols, killing one or two men silently before disappearing back into the jungle which all of them knew far better than any Japanese.

From then on, Stewart and the forty fighting men of the tribe harassed the Japanese from the fastnesses of the jungle, accounting for a dozen or so Japanese troops every week, sometimes more.

But they couldn’t stop the inevitable advance of thousands of Japanese. What they could do is watch, follow and report, and sometimes call-in air strikes. The air strikes had limited effect because crossing the Owen Stanley ranges and locating a Japanese position in thick jungle was difficult.

Canny had never had a lasting girlfriend because few women wanted to camp out in the jungle where Canny spent most of his time. He couldn’t consider any tribeswomen, not because he didn’t fancy them, and many were very willing, but because out of tribe relationships caused killings.

When the Japanese built an advanced base about ten miles West of the Kokoda Trace, which Canny reported to Port Moresby, the authorities decided it had to be attacked and preferably destroyed. The Kokoda Trace was the only practical if almost impossible way to cross the Owen Stanley ranges and the base would be a threat to any allied forces coming along the Trace. Canny asked for, and got, some metal plates and tubes, and some incendiary explosives.

He made crude mortars from the tubes which would launch used lager cans about 100 yards. But the Japanese had been strewing caltrops around their base. Canny, wearing Army boots with a steel insole, was immune. The barefoot tribesmen weren’t until Canny cut steel plates to be built into sandals made by the tribeswomen. But the warriors disliked them. They couldn’t move as quickly and quietly as they had in bare feet, Canny arranged a compromise. The first man would wear a pair of sandals and carry a strong magnet. If any caltrops were found, everyone would wear the reinforced sandalsuntil they were beyond the caltrops. They might collect the caltrops and move them to a trail used by the Japanese whose footwear didn’t protect them from the caltrops.

After more Japanese had been injured by caltrops than the few tribesmen, the Japanese stopped using them.

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Canny arranged a time and date for the attack on the Japanese base. With forty men he couldn’t face hundreds of Japanese but he would set fire to the base, withdraw, and let bombers from Port Moresby aim at the flames and smoke. His attack would start ten minutes before the bombers would arrive.

The lager-can mortars were set up and the other tribesmen had flaming bolts for their crossbows. When Canny got the radio message that the bombers were close, the mortars were fired. The results exceeded his expectations. The inflammable cans and the same mixture on the flaming arrows could not be put out by water, only by burying in earth, and the huts set alight were too large for that.

For once the bombers had a clear target and their bombs were almost all dropped in the right place but Canny and the tribesmen had moved half a mile away, even so, one bomb landed close to them.

As the bombing continued, the Japanese fled into the surrounding jungle. The mortar attack and the bombing had killed about eighty Japanese. The tribesmen killed another dozen or so in the jungle before the rest of the Japanese retreated back to their main base. Canny and the tribesmen had carefully explored the remains of the base but almost anything of value had been destroyed.

What the tribesmen had acquired was enough rifles and ammunition for all of them. Despite Canny’s reservations they would not give them up so he would have to train the tribesmen in their use.

A hundred yards away from the main base they found an intact hut surrounded by an electrified barbed wire fence. After they had shorted out the electricity and cut through the fence, they found that the hut’s door was barred on the outside. Inside they found half a dozen captured Australian soldiers and three nurses who had staffed a rural medical station. They hurried the former prisoners away before the Japanese could return.

They had to abandon one mortar which had been damaged by Japanese counter-fire. But although repairable, it would be useless to the Japanese because it fired Australian lager cans, not standard mortar shells.

The tribesmen’s withdrawal was slowed by the former prisoners and the carrying of rifles and ammunition. The nurses’ footwear was unsuitable for the jungle, so they were given some steel reinforced sandals, but even so the speed was half that normally. The Japanese had reacted like a disturbed hornet’s nest and were everywhere in the jungle but often they were firing at each other. Some, who came too close, were killed by crossbows.

At the tribe’s temporary base, which was moved every few weeks, the prisoners could rest. Arrangements were made for some of the tribeswomen to escort the rescued prisoners to the forward Australian forces, but it would take a week for the journey. The senior nurse, Sandra, hadslightly sprained an ankle. She declined to leave and suggested she could stay to treat any wounded, and also to kill Japanese if she could because the Japanese had killed her doctor husband and their two young sons. She wanted revenge.

Sandra was a well-developed fair-haired woman. While her ankle was healing, she decided she would look after Canny. She washed his uniforms and repaired them frequently damaged by passing through the jungle. She took over from some of the native woman as his cook, preparing Australian style food instead of what the tribe generally ate. While Canny appreciated her, and so did the tribe for her medical skills, Canny wasn’t sure that being in the jungle fighting Japanese was the right place for an Australian nurse, but Sandra wouldn’t leave.

About five miles from the tribe’s current base was a partly completed airstrip that had been started in 1939 by a logging company but abandoned before completion because of the war. Canny and the tribesmen didn’t have the resources or equipment to complete it, but they used it to receive air drops. Canny took the tribe there and set up a rifle range for them to practise with the captured Japanese rifles. Sandra had been kangaroo hunting with her father but found the Japanese rifles awkward to use. Once Canny gave her a SMLE, she could hit any target up to four hundred yards.

After a few weeks, the tribesmen were competent up to one hundred yards. Because of the thick jungle they were unlikely to fire further than that, but Canny was still worried that they weren’t as quiet as the crossbows.

Over those few weeks some medical supplies had ben air-dropped for Sandra, but she had decided that Canny was her special care. He and his tribesmen had little real impact on the Japanese advance and were just an irritation but worried the Japanese troops because they could attack silently and disappear back into the jungle. Their kills were few, but their impact slowed the advance. Canny was of strategic importance because he kept an eye on what the Japanese were doing and could report by radio to Port Moresby.

Sandra’s base had been about twenty miles away dealing with three tribes who all spoke different languages. Canny’s tribe spoke yet a fourth, similar language, but subtly different. It took Sandra about two weeks to begin to understand them and to be able to speak to them. Sandra managed to emphasise Canny’s importance to the war effort and that he should be protected at all costs. On the next patrol Canny was surprised to be surrounded by eight tribeswomen carrying crossbows.

When they encountered a Japanese patrol, the women surrounded Canny and stopped him from taking the lead. Sandra stood in front of him carrying an early production model of the Owen submachine gun in.45 ACP calibre with which she killed three Japanese. It was one of four air-dropped to Canny and not yet on general issue to the Australian Forces

“Not enough,” she said afterwards. “I want ten of each for my two boys and another ten for my husband.”

Canny had protested that his line of fire was being blocked by Sandra and the tribeswomen. After the Japanese had retreated one of the tribeswomen said:

“Your woman told us you are indispensable, Canny. Only you can operate the radio, and you are worth many men to the Australians. We are all old, past childbearing, and so we don’t matter. If one of us gets killed? We don’t affect the survival of the tribe. You do, and your woman wants you to produce more Cannys.”

“Your woman? More Cannys?” What have you been saying to them Sandra?”

“By the tribe’s customs, a woman chooses her man. She goes to see the headman and his wife and announces her choice. If she isn’t obnoxious, the headsman and his wife usually agree. The women couldn’t understand my concern about you, Canny, so I did just that a week ago. You are officially my fiancée by the tribe’s laws. OK?”

“What does that mean, Sandra?”

“In a week’s time, we will be formally man and wife. There is a two-week delay in which the man can object otherwise the union is accepted as fact. There isn’t anyone else, is there?”

“No. No one would have me. They didn’t want to live in the jungle, Sandra, and now we are at war, my prospects of survival are small.”

“The Japanese had told us that we nurses would be comfort women for their officers as soon as they had built a brothel hut to house us. They were too busy building the base and hadn’t got around to a brothel before you attacked. But in a week or so, I was to be a prostitute. I intended to kill any Japanese officer who had sex and I had made a garrotte with a length of electrical wire. I know I would have been killed but I wanted to take at least one with me. Now I want more, many more, until all the Japanese on New Guinea are dead or fled. My fiancée and husband-to-be Canny are my best opportunity for killing Japanese. In the meantime, in a week’s time, we will be officially married, and I will be your willing comfort woman. That’s what the tribe expect. That’s what you will get.”

“I’m honoured Sandra, but are you sure? I’m much older than you and I might not live long.”

“Older? Perhaps. But you are fit and healthy otherwise you wouldn’t have lived so long in the jungle. You might die? So might I. But I and the tribeswoman will protect you from the Japanese. You are essential to the war in New Guinea and have been taking too many risks. I and they will try to minimise them because we need you. I need you.”

Canny couldn’t respond. Sandra had jumped on his lap and was kissing him breathless. It had been decades since Canny had had an attractive woman kissing him, but he had remembered how to respond. A quarter of an hour later Sandra let him speak.

“What is the wedding ceremony, Sandra?” he asked.

“With this tribe? Very simple. All we have to do is go to the headman’s hut hand in hand. Our joined hands signify your acceptance of my proposal. By then I will have made two necklaces from nut shells. You put one on me; I put one on you. That’s it. But the women have been laughing at me because I need so many nut shells. I am the largest woman around, and your necklace will be twice as long as any previous husband’s.”

Sandra started kissing Canny again.

“It would have been more elaborate at the tribes I had been working with. They have a day of drinking and dancing and build a bridal hut. For the first hour after the married couple enter the hut, the matrons of the tribe surround it, making as much noises as possible.”

“I’m not so sure I would enjoy that,” Canny said.

“It is supposed to encourage the couple…”

“How are those tribes? How were they getting on with the Japanese?”

“Reasonably at first although they objected to being used as porters. But they stole too much from the Japanese who attacked them, and my medical centre, as a punishment. Unlike your tribe, they didn’t rape the women, just killed them. Most Japanese regard the New Guinea tribes as sub-human monkeys and kill them for sport. No local women would ever be used as comfort women. The soldiers would see the women as monkeys, not human. Now the three tribes attack the Japanese whenever they can, some using your crossbows.”

“My crossbows?”

“Yes. Your knives, crossbows and items made from your beer cans are valued items of trade. My tribes almost see you as a God because of your metal making skills. I had learned a lot about you because you are a celebrity in this part of New Guinea, even though we had never met. Your stalking skills were praised, moving quieter and faster through the jungle than any tribesmen, even though they were born and raised in the jungle.”

“I’m just ordinary, Sandra.” Canny protested.

“The tribespeople don’t think so, nor do I, nor even the Australian authorities. You have to live with it, Canny. You’re a legend who scares many Japanese.”

“My job isn’t to scare them, but to kill them and disrupt their supply chain. Which reminds me. We will have to go to the old airstrip. The Australians are sending a dozen or so paratroopers to help us. They will arrive at dawn the day after our wedding, so I am pleased we don’t face a noisy night.”

“It might not be noisy, but I expect you to be active that night, Canny.”

“I hope I can satisfy you. We will be staying by the airstrip that night so I might just have to crawl out of bed.”

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It took a whole day to move the tribe to by the old airstrip. Canny forge was the most difficult, but they had been too long in one place which the Japanese might discover. The next day they started to clear the recently grown undergrowth, piling the cut off shrubs in a ragged cross to mark the landing place for the paratroopers. Because of the incessant rain the cleared shrubs would not turn brown for a week or so.

The day before the paratroops were due to land just after dawn, Canny and Sandra went to the headman hand in hand, they exchanged necklaces but then the headsman surprised Canny.

He produced a book and asked Canny and Sandra to complete the forms inside. The headsman had been appointed as a registrar, authorised to conduct civil ceremonies but he didn’t know how to write in English even if he knew how to do the ceremony in his own language. Sandra and Canny were formally married by Australian laws as well as by the tribe’s traditions.

That night canny had to demonstrate just how fit he was because Sandra was so demanding. She had to shake him awake half an hour before dawn. Canny and a few of the tribesmen lit smoky fires to show the wind direction. Right on time the paratroopers arrived, preceded by an equipment drop. The lieutenant in command landed right on the centre of the cross and the others landed within a few yards. Canny was pleased that the lieutenant in command, Brian, had been the best of his jungle training pupils. They all hurried off the airstrip to the temporary camp.

Brian explained what they had been sent to do, A large Japanese resupply chain was expected to set out for the Kokada Trace in two days time and it had to be stopped or at least reduced in scale, Both sides were operating at the limit of their supply chains, Any supplies prevented from arrival would substantially weaken the Japanese at the front line and they would expect to be attacked in the foothills, miles from their front line.

The Japanese would have to ford a river, running high because of the rain, and there was only one place where the banks were low enough to cross on a rock shelf that made the water reasonably shallow. The paratroopers wanted to ambush the Japanese.

Canny and some of the tribesmen considered the proposed ambush with their local knowledge and the plane was modified to include the tribesmen, armed initially with silent crossbows. The day before the warriors, the paratroopers and Canny’s guard women moved to be near the crossing point where the paratroopers dug in machine gun posts and standard mortar positions.

On the day the Japanese were due it was raining so hard that the river was even higher than normal, and the noise of the heavy rain drowned the noises of anyone moving through the jungle. As Canny had expected, the Japanese had an advanced patrol of six men, but they were one hundred yards ahead of the main force. All six were killed by crossbows without the main Japanese being aware that they were dead.

The warriors moved back to the edge of the river and engaged the Japanese with rifles. The Japanese thought it was just another irritating tribal attack, stopped the porters and sent forward infantry to clear the few warriors. As soon as they were struggling to cross the river, the paratroopers opened fire from the flanks with their machine guns. Every Japanese infantryman was killed or wounded and swept away by the river. The Japanese responded with mortar fire and the paratroopers used their mortars too while moving the machine guns to other prepared positions, so the Japanese were pounding empty trenches.