The Widow & Her Hero (16 page)

I said, My husband, Captain Waterhouse, was awarded
the DSO for an earlier mission.

The young man rose and whispered further to Mr
McBride. The cabinet minister knotted his broad brow as
the whispers entered his ear. At last he said, Ah yes, Mrs
Waterhouse, that was for Cornflakes.

He shook his head. These names, he said, chuckling a
little. But that was exceptional.

Pat Bantry got the Military Medal, Rhonda said. In
North Africa. But Singapore was where he gave everything.
And yet there is nothing at all for that.

Mr McBride said, I'm sure it was given every consideration
at the time. His secretary was passing another file to
him which he quickly read. Oh yes, the policy was reinforced
in 1943 after the Cornflakes expedition.

But he read further into the file, squinting his eyes up
into a frown now and then. You see, he explained, on
Cornflakes they all came back. So they were all witnesses
to each other's valour. Sadly, there were no witnesses left
after Memerang, and hence no military awards.

He looked up. I know it's harsh, but it is apparently the
rule.

I believe we all became simultaneously annoyed at this
pettifogging. Mrs Danway said, But there are enough
witnesses now.
We
know what happened, don't we? From
witnesses. From the records.

I said, Captain Gabriel told me even the enemy thought
they were brave.

And they gave more than most people ever did, said Sherry
Danway with an edge. More than any general ever gave.

The minister let a painful smile cross over his face, left
to right. Well, you're probably right about that, he
admitted. Of course they had cyanide pills . . . Did you
know that? All such operatives were issued with them.

I hadn't known. Though I'd heard rumours about it,
mainly from Dotty, no one had told us that officially. We
took a while to absorb it.

I can't imagine Leo taking a suicide pill, I told McBride.
And I don't think he should have been expected to.

Hugo would never have taken his, said Sherry. It was
against his religion.

Would you give them a medal if they all took their
suicide pills? asked Rhonda.

No . . . The minister knew he had made a tasteless
mistake and was back-pedalling. No, suicide is contrary to
my principles too.

Though I had sustained myself to this point as well as I
could, I wanted the meeting to be over. I wanted it to end
in Mr McBride's reasonable surrender. Now that we'd done
our duty, I wanted him to say, Of course! What an oversight!
I'll take it up immediately and achieve justice for
these men.

Then I wanted to gallop down the stairs without the
burden of any further knowledge. If you had asked me
what I was scared of I wouldn't have been able to tell you.
Poor Leo deserved a more valiant wife. But then I thought,
What are Dotty or Minette doing? They were fussy women.
Though Dotty wrote to me and kept me informed of
Minette, she had never mentioned their trying to make a
fuss about the men in Whitehall.

So I summed up the feelings of my sisters in grievance. It
seems strange to me, I said, that they were decorated for
Cornflakes, which didn't kill them, and not for Memerang,
which did.

Well, said McBride, it was considered at that time by a
thoroughgoing military commission, young lady, and there
are no grounds on which I could reverse their decision.
Anyhow, look how often the story of Doucette's raiding
parties are told in the press. The Memerang people will
always be honoured and known to future generations. I
really think you'll have to be content with that.

I doubt very much that Sergeant Bantry is happy to let it
go at that, Rhonda told the minister.

McBride smiled at her with a sort of heavily tested
tolerance.

We're sadly in no position to know that, young lady.

I prayed she would not admit to having seen the ghost,
which of course would enable him to end the meeting very
promptly. He took this moment of confusion to break
away from the mid-desk seat and go to lean over his male
secretary for yet another muttered conference. The secretary
pointed out paragraphs in files he handed to his
superior. McBride scanned them before putting them down
again on the desk with a Yes, yes.

Through this, Sherry Danway's eyes remained fixed on
his vacated chair. She was pale but – like me – was sticking
it out. As the minister returned to his seat, she said suddenly
and in a near shout, I think if we tell the newspapers
. . . I think they'll find it all pretty strange like we do.

This did upset the minister a little. Look, they can't make
any judgement on this matter. At least I am operating on
full information. Besides, why now? There is another war
raging. Perhaps you should have come forward earlier.

That idea struck us hard – that we'd delayed. In fact, all
Sherry Danway and I could do was look at each other,
surrendering the advantage to the minister. But Rhonda went
on fighting for us. Come on, you have to be fair, Mr
McBride, she protested. In those days it was hard for these
women to say anything. Memerang were missing. Then
every month they learned something new, and it was never
good news. They were as scared as billy-o of what they'd
hear next. And in any case, they're here now.

The minister nodded, conceding all this. Look, he said,
I sincerely urge you all to leave this issue where it stands. I
could tell you some committee or other would return to it.
But that would be a lie. The matter is finally settled. I wish
you'd take my word on that. So, for your own sakes . . .

Our only power, I could sense, was that he was worried
we might weep, scream or do some of the other things that
made men his age lose their natural colour and close one
eye and wince at the messiness of the world. And we could
not leave. We didn't know whether his advice was kindness
or a lie. He turned to his secretary.

Would you like to talk about this, Mr Henley?

A man unleashed, Mr Henley was happy to. But
McBride had a sudden doubt. He held his hand up. Ladies,
why not just accept my word on this and go away from
here certain of the bravery of your husbands, your . . .
men.

Rhonda leaned forward to check our faces. She said,
We can't all go away now, Mr McBride. You've raised a
mystery.

All right, then, he said, and nodded to Henley. Henley
told us that the Memerang men had been considered for
awards and decorations. But, he said, there was a further
problem than lack of witnesses. As part of the operation,
the group had been trained to use a new and very valuable
submersible craft. This craft was of such revolutionary
design that it allowed operatives to approach enemy ships
without being seen. During their training the men learned
to handle these craft, and it was impressed on them that
if intercepted they were to destroy these vessels and say
nothing to the enemy about them. When things did go
wrong, they destroyed the vessels. But fragments were
retrieved by the Japanese from a shallow sea floor, and
presented with these fragments, a number of the
Memerang personnel were betrayed into giving information
. . . I stress they were probably tricked. Your husband
was one, Mrs Waterhouse, and yours another, Mrs
Danway. I'm afraid SOE in London, who had ownership
of the craft, were very angry about it. And it certainly
vitiated any chance of awards and honours.

At this news I felt my consciousness departing and
leaned forward in my chair, letting out a great Oh!

McBride said, It doesn't matter at all. They were still
heroes, and no one's going to bring out the matter of the
submersibles publicly. It would need to come out, of course,
only if you made public accusations that we were niggardly
towards those men. Are you all right, Mrs Waterhouse?

He was rising in his seat. I felt heeled-over, hanging at
a disastrous angle, and when I tried to correct that I
stumbled off my chair. I certainly could not speak. There
was a flurry of people entering the office and bringing
water, but that made me angry for some reason, and with
normal irritation, I returned to myself.

Does it mean they were tortured? I asked. I meant,
tortured about the submersibles.

For the first time the minister showed some unease. He
mumbled, I think it was more a matter of deception and
feint –

I stood up. I said, I can't bear it if they were tortured!

My ears were ringing. I knew I was failing Leo, not up
to his strength. I have no clear memory from that point
until Rhonda and Sherry were taking me down the stairs
and assuring various women staff that I was fine now and
that we didn't need tea. It would have been impossible for
us to drink in McBride's shadow. I couldn't have borne it.

We were fortunate that in the vacant parkland beyond
the front door, a cab was discharging a passenger. Rhonda
ran and captured it, and we all got in without a word.
The only things said during the journey were by Rhonda.
I probably shouldn't have pushed this trip on you, she
told us wanly. Neither Sherry Danway nor myself was
speaking.

We arrived at the boarding house, and Mrs Danway got
out immediately and hurried inside, still without saying
anything. Since Rhonda insisted on paying the first fare,
I applied my confused mind to paying this one. Then we
caught up with Sherry – she was in the lobby asking the girl
for her key. Rhonda took her by the arm and said something
about hoping she was not too upset. She did not get
an answer. Well meaningly, she followed Sherry to the
stairs. Don't go up to your room, Sherry. Let's have a cup
of tea and all cheer up. Why should we give a damn about
these submersible boats? If it saved any of them from
getting beaten up, all the better!

Sherry Danway said, I wish I'd never seen you. You'll go
home to your husband. Nothing's lost to you. Grace and I
go home knowing our husbands are blamed, and the blame
will always be there, in some file. I thought I was as lonely
as a person could be. But you've managed to make it
worse. I have a different picture of Hugo I have to live with
now.

She covered her eyes with a web of fingers. Poor bloody
Danway, she said. Wanting to build his house. Poor helpless
big bugger!

I went up to her and held her, and began to feel her
inner collapse and the release of tears. It was as if the
impact of the original news of execution had occurred all
over again. It was exactly as Sherry had said. The minister
had given us a new dimension to the version of their
deaths we had become accustomed to and managed to live
on with. We both doubted we had the strength to absorb
new versions.

Rhonda moved to join us in our mourning, but I
dissuaded her with a severe look. I felt Sherry Danway's
crazy, unstoppable anger too.

Rhonda's face filled with colour. You blame me for this?
she asked. Do you?

Yes, I admitted. Don't worry. We can't help it. But it was
never your business!

On the way back to Sydney on the train, we all read and
moped. Rhonda knew that whatever she said it could call
up a fury in us. I went especially to get a cup of tea with
her in the buffet car, and I was able to summon the grace
to say to her again, Don't worry. It's not your fault.

If I were married to Bantry, she said, I wouldn't blame
him for anything he gave away.

Do you really think we blame our husbands? Of course
we bloody-well don't.

I felt a desire to hurt her badly – even with a blow. But
it had to be suppressed. I warned her though. You're in no
position to understand it or be impatient with us.

She sighed and looked out the window. She was a good
woman, slow to take offence.

I realise I shouldn't have come, she said, only partly in
chagrin.

It was not easy of course, but I adjusted to the new terms
of Leo's death because people do that, changing the course
of their thinking even while believing it can't be done. In
some ways I didn't want to examine too closely, the new
version of Leo, once painfully digested, made it easier for me
to enter a new phase. I married Laurie Burden in 1953, and
– in defiance of doctors and nurses who considered me an
'elderly primapara', a first time mother of advanced age, an
opinion they expressed in terms such as my making 'a
late
run' or 'leaving things a bit late' – I gave birth to a healthy
boy, Alexander. Alexander was one of those children who
carry an air not of being a stranger visiting the earth but of
having the ways of the world worked out. He was what we
sometimes called a happy warrior, perpetually engaged in
cricket, rugby and surfing, an adequate scholar but not to an
extent that interfered with his social life. His father considered
him not adequately serious. I blessed the balmy star under
which he'd been born.

We were suddenly a sanguine and fortunate family,
living above Balmoral Beach, sailing every second Saturday
on Laurie's boat, opening up Laurie's house and garden to
a tide of visitors, contacts of Laurie's, many of whom I
found myself liking.

Occasionally a Memerang story would surface without
warning in the press – brave Doucette, brave everyone, the
gallant Captain Leo Waterhouse. A tale of confrontation,
escape, betrayal and tragedy, etc. I knew by some instinct
I had not heard the last of any of it.

In the 1960s, Memerang came to a head again through
the researches of a young man named Mark Lydon. He was
one of those Australian journalists who heavily populated
the British press in the days when Fleet Street was a name
synonymous with newspapers. A handsome, mannerly
young fellow whose clothes had the appropriate scuffed
look of a graduate student, he worked for the
Observer
in
England and was contemplating a book on the history of
Memerang. From the way he carried himself when he came
to see me on a journey home to Sydney, I noticed in him
a doggedness which might raise awkward questions all
around. The Beatles had just become big, and I wished his
mind was set on them rather than the 1940s. But he was
easy to talk to, and I did enjoy revisiting such subjects as
what an extraordinary pair Dotty and Rufus were.

The submarine? he asked me at last. You know, it came
back late to the meeting place, this NE1, Serapem. But
Moxham did come back in the end. And Eddie Frampton,
their conducting officer, landed there but decided they
weren't there to be picked up. He landed once. And that
was it.

I said, He landed
once
? To look for them?

Yes, I regret that's the situation.

For the moment, I felt impaled.

Look, that's all it seems from the documents I have.

But if you want to pick men up, you have to look more
than once.

When I go back to England, said Mark Lydon, I've got
to try to see Frampton. He invented the Silver Bullets, you
know. But why did he land on the pick-up island just once?

He certainly had a hunger to question Major Frampton.
Look, I said, I'm sure he did all he could. I was almost
tempted to say, Leave Eddie Frampton in peace.

Is it possible, I asked myself, for the dead to appoint
their archivist? For Lydon was as relentless and painstaking
as a brother. Maybe more so.

A year or so later I received a letter from Dotty, and
enclosed in it a suicide letter from Eddie Frampton addressed
to Dotty and Minette and none of the rest of us. Eddie
Frampton had been found dead in his car at Doncaster
station.

This applies to you as much as it does to myself and
Minette, wrote Dotty. In fact, more so. I think Frampton
meant we'd send it on to other involved parties, and
though I hate to subject you to this stuff, Grace, I also feel
it would be criminal not to.

The letter was written on the stationery of Frampton
Engineering, Single Girder, Double Girder, Torsion Girder
with Cantilever, Gantry Portal Cranes, and Traverser
Cranes. It was an excruciating document, occasionally
falling away into self-pity, but ruthless as well.

February 20, 1966

NOT TO BE SHOWN TO MY FAMILY

To be sent under CONFIDENTIALITY instead to
Mrs Minette Doucette, England; Mrs Dotty Mortmain,
London.

Dear Ladies,

This is told you in confidence. A simple rough letter full of the
blunt sentiments of a man who's dying, and if I offend you with
that you'll just have to forgive it. I have to let you know straight
what I can't tell my wife, and beg you in decency not to disturb
her or visit her.

I've been questioned by this Mark Lydon fellow, and I always
knew it would happen. If I'd stayed on at SOE in Baker Street and
not gone gallivanting off to the Indian and Pacific, I could have had
an honoured career. Everyone knows the letters SOE these days.
Books coming out. Special Operations Executive. The letters are an
adequate explanation of a life to those chaps in bars who still ask
what you did in those days. And who were you with, old chap?
SOE does the trick. Sworn to discretion. They imagine parachute
drops and explosions and being bound not to reveal anything.

Mr Frampton? This author, Lydon, asks me by phone. He's
an Aussie, a Fleet Street bugger works for the
Observer
. Trying
to write an account of Doucette's two great missions to Singapore.
He has a British publisher. He mentions the name and it's
a publisher I recognise.

I thought I'd better see this writer then, but I've had no peace
of mind from that day. Sleepless nights. Isabel saying exasperated,
Come to bed, love, and similar, making me tea I put
Scotch into.

I fought my way through a number of meetings with Lydon,
but it was all hopeless. Did you ever nearly piss in your pants, I
wanted to ask him, like I did when Private Stapler and I landed
at Serapem and saw that Jap walk past down Hammock Hill
with his little dog? But the reason I write this is because I have
no excuse to offer, so I'd better stop offering one.

Private Stapler wanted to capture the man. He said he'd shoot
me. Rather shoot a Pommy than an enemy of the Crown, he
said. Pommy poofter! he said. He put the barrel of his Sten
against my cheek. We could know everything that happened if
you'd let me capture that Nip! he said.

And what would we do? I asked this berserk colonial boy.
With ten hours before dark? What would we do with him after?

Anyhow, as we Framptons drink tea with this chap the
author, Isabel said to him, I hope you appreciate the problem it is
for Eddie. He's got enough problems running the factory and
serving on the County Council, you know?

I do appreciate it, said the young man. I saw him nod all
right, but could tell he was bloody ruthless. He'd read too much.
He'd been into the records and he'd read my report on visiting
NE1, and Lieutenant-Commander Moxham's – who's a bloody
admiral these days. He'd read Stapler's report too, he told me,
which I think should have been destroyed in the interests of
decency.

I wondered, asked this colonial, how Commander Moxham
could have so misread the orders . . .? I mean, the orders for
picking up Doucette's men on time? As I understand it, he was
to bring you to NE1 for the rendezvous every night for a month,
starting on October 20 1944?

Yes, I admitted. But subject to the safety of the submarine.

The smell of
Orca
came back to me, and I felt I wanted to be
sick in a new sense.

Well, he didn't get you there till sixteen days after the agreed
time.

I feel you deserve the answer I gave the boy. Moxham got
a fixation and insisted on staying out and using his fifteen
torpedoes. I told Moxham we had to move along to NE1,
Doucette's crowd would be waiting. I didn't like Moxham's
stubbornness any more than anyone else. But the simple truth
was these sub commanders hated picking up operatives. They
didn't get much credit amongst their peers for that.

As the baby author pointed out, we now know the Memerang
operatives I was meant to pick up
were
on NE1 at the appointed
time. And by the time I got there were still hiding on another
island by day and paddling across to the Hammock Hill site on
NE1 by night. My report showed I visited the Hammock Hill
only once and in the day.

It's true that when I got back to the sub, Moxham said he
couldn't land me there again. Water's too shallow in that
archipelago, he said. I mean,
Orca
had been tracked that day by
a Japanese anti-submarine plane. They were on to us, you
understand. Only a matter of time . . .

I ask your pardon. I had been, however, eighty days there, on
that sub
Orca
, conducting them up there to Serapem, then back
to Fremantle so the Malay crew of the junk could be interviewed
by intelligence. Then off again to fetch the party. I had only
three days ashore in Western Australia in all that time. By the
time we got to NE1, I had no muscle tone left. I was physically
done. I could barely stand, scarcely use an oar, and even found
walking difficult.

Lack of muscle tone isn't an excuse. I never got over it, any
more than you have. After the war I swore off sophisticated
engineering, and became a plain old steelwright who liked putting
together big transoms of steel for ordinary purposes. Deliberately
went from little cunning devices to big plain structures – to get
over what I think was a kind of crack-up, though a fellow
couldn't tell anyone that then. I never said so to anyone.

I should have insisted on going back to Hammock Hill on
Serapem the next night, and the night after, and if that hadn't
worked, should have insisted we capture the locals and ask
them what they knew of my lost brethren. There were still so
many of the Memerang boys living and hiding out on NEs and
NCs at that stage. Not only did Mark Lydon know that I
should have done all that, should have been an enterprising
officer like Doucette, who always consulted locals. But he also
knew that
I knew
I should have done it, and that my failure
was eating my vitals and that I dreaded all the stuff he had to
tell me.

Right now, Mr Fleet Street is waiting at home for me, Isabel
telling him, He'll be here in a moment, something must have
come up at the works. I remember when I met her her family
didn't use the word the in sentences and she's had to learn.
Soomthin coom oop at works,
she would have said once. Dear
Isabel.

The Independent Reconnaissance Department was so fussy in
some ways, but also incompetent in others, and never asked me
for my glass-coated death pill back. I kept it in my kit. I kept it
in my office desk as a sort of insurance against anything
becoming intolerable – cancer or bankruptcy or such. Bakelite
and glass coating to stop accidental usage.
I am the last victim of Operation Memerang, and I suppose I
can't blame you for thinking I'm its last war criminal.
I would be obliged if you and your sisters in loss forgave me
my neglect, and I seek that favour from you.
I'll soon be walking the shadows with your brave fellows.

(MAJOR) EDDIE FRAMPTON