The outboard
There was another incident that may be worthy of mention that also bugged me a little. One day my platoon was out on a reconnaissance patrol on the Rabaul side of Tol Plantation – a sort of ‘no mans land’. We came across this small hut, it was not native; it was either built by the previous plantation owner or by the Japs, nobody knew or cared but we did care about what was inside. Would you believe it held a beautiful big outboard-motor?
‘Muggins’, being probably the biggest and strongest in our platoon volunteered to carry it back, so passing the Bren onto my no. 2 of mates then struggled it up onto my back. We then beat a hasty retreat back to our company’s perimeter some miles behind.
By the time we got back I was just about buggered and dumped the bloody thing on the ground, breaking off the fuel line that goes into the carburettor. Mick did mention it to me but it would not have been all that hard to fix. He being an officer there was not any problem for him to take it back to Australia if he chose.
When we did in fact all arrive back in Brisbane he sold it to our company commander for X amount of money. Both Mick and his wife invited the whole platoon out for a night in Brisbane, all except me; I was down with a bout of Malaria at Greenslopes Hospital just out of Brisbane.
I thought at the time and even today still think that seeing as how I was the silly big idiot who carried the bastard of a thing all the way on my back the least they could have done was to wait another week until I came out of hospital. Maybe it did not suit their itinerary. I don’t know, what do you think?