Dedication

To our parents for leading us across the bridge of circumstance, change, and acceptance.

    I did not want this. I pushed away a stream of tears from underneath my black-rimmed glasses, as the Big Balus prepared itself for flight. Those familiar and uncontrollable convulsions had returned. My chest had decided to fight back hard, and I was in jeopardy once more. It wasn’t an overactive imagination this time, my body was right to react this way, even if the high pitch of the Skyvan’s propellers seemed to belittle my chest’s justifiable reaction. Through the tears, and the pungent vapour of kerosene fumes from the Skyvan’s engines, I could just make out a few of the Domara locals. They had come to collect their prized possessions from the plane before it returned to Port Moresby.  

    The plane started to move down the bumpy grass strip as I watched the familiar green scrubland amble past the Perspex window. The back of my elder brother’s head was also in view, and so was his number two crew cut that Dad had given us yesterday in preparation for our new life. Wayne was seated by himself. The closest person to the pilot’s cabin and seated with the expectation, once we were at safe cruising altitude, that he would be invited into the cabin to watch the pilot fly the plane. At the end of the strip, the big balus turned one hundred and eighty degrees, steadied itself for a second or two, and then sent the engines pitch to a sound level that would make Australian cicadas cry in pain. The green bush on the other side of the plane started to run past my window. The plane had just left solid ground behind and had entered the emptiness that is human flight. 

    The Papuan Air Skyvan commenced its steep climb into a solid grey sky, away from Cape Rodney, and the Domara River community. We were not coming back. I cuddled into my mother for a brief second, and then tore myself away to look out the window. I wanted to reach out of that window and hold onto the familiar green landscape that had started to stretch out below me. How easy, just reach out, with your hand through the Perspex, to pick up and hold onto the village houses that I could see dotted near the cream-coloured sandy bay.

    Wayne glanced out the window in the seat in front, his side profile revealed a stoic countenance; my mother had her job-card filled with the task of calming me down. Hearing Mother’s voice, shhh, shhh, shush, while she rocked me back and forth, let me know that my emotional turmoil no matter how uncontrollable was understood.

    ‘Shush, stop that now, you’ll make yourself sick.’ Mother wiping tears away from her face provided me with a maternal bond, and proof that my feeling about leaving Lahara plantation was shared.

    The Skyvan had now circled back over the dull turquoise water of Otomata Point, giving me a clear view of a twisting snake-like creek estuary that passed through the copra plantations to join the bay. Below I could see the white roof of our EH Holden and the large frame of our dad in his white shirt, light blue pants, and white socks. He was holding an arm up to the sky as we made a straight flight path towards Port Moresby.

    We would not see Dad for another year, until the Christmas break in December 1972, when he would visit us for two weeks before returning to the financial responsibilities of Lahara. It would be a short flight into Jackson Airport from Cape Rodney; but on this day, arrival times into Port Moresby didn’t mean much. Port Moresby was a waypoint, a stepping-stone, to our big city destination at Kingsford Smith Airport in Sydney.

***

    ‘Your mother and I have always tried to be open with you boys about family plans for our future.’ This was a phrase Wayne and I heard now and then, and it was stated when the subject of why we had to leave Lahara came up. We knew this would be the last time we would see the plantation, because it was explained to us at the dinner table one night. It was a few months away from my eighth birthday. Wayne had already reached a milestone age of ten when we were given two reasons for us to leave and never return.

    The first explanation was due to the world commodity price of rubber. Dad told us - the world price for rubber had plummeted to record lows - that the plantation didn’t have enough rubber trees to produce the extra latex needed to make up for the price drop. It was a simple equation for both of us to understand, we knew how a rubber plantation worked. We did not need to understand all the other complicated details: interest rates, loan repayments, maintenance expenses, labour expenses, or cash flow and store credit.

    The second explanation related to our education. The reason centred on the failure of the Colony to provide adequate schooling. The importance of education was a necessity that affected any family with children, teenagers, and young adults, living in Papua and New Guinea. Our parent’s decision to leave the Domara River community, which they had known for over ten years, was made at a time when the Australian Colony was being pushed headfirst into a journey of self-government. How to educate people in a colony as inaccessible and tribal as Papua and New Guinea was just one of the many complex governing questions that needed reputation saving answers for Australia on the United Nations world stage.

    Our parents told us of their decision to leave permanently one week before the scheduled mail plane was due. I felt scared and confused after that frank explanation was handed to us. We both wanted to know why we couldn’t continue with correspondence school. We knew if we were going to stay at Lahara the other option was boarding school, but not anymore. If Wayne and I were being noisy in the car on our trips into Marshal Lagoon, Dad would boom out, ‘if you two don’t stop that racket in the back seat we’ll send you away - to boarding school.’ Dad would then look over at Mother and we would see his black and grey-flecked goatee move to match the shape of the smirk on his face. That never failed to keep us both quiet in the back seat for the remainder of the journey.

    At the age of seven, I had an accurate sense of what boarding school would be like. Boarding school consisted of a huge long room with cast-iron beds and children curled up and crying for their families every night. Their night’s sleep in the dorm would sometimes be interrupted. When it was disturbed, they would all jump and dive under their beds holding their hands over their ears. The mere threat of boarding school would send a shiver up my spine, without fail, and keep me as quiet as a mouse. This accurate imagery was available to me thanks to having seen an English boarding school in the 1969 movie: Goodbye Mr Chips, at the Friday night movies held near Marshall Lagoon at the sawmill near Marshall Lagoon. Since this movie was my only point of reference, that sense of boarding school was dramatized, and overlayed with the sound of air raid sirens from Second World War bombing raids over England. The war theme in the movie was recognisable thanks to hearing plenty of ABC radio news coverage, and other special war reports, of the Vietnam War on Lahara’s radio after dinner each night.

    I didn’t realise that for all children living in Port Moresby, and on outlying plantations, boarding school was the only option once you reached high school age. It wasn’t just a scare tactic used by noise sensitive parents to keep children under control. We had no high schools in the Domara River area. On the night of being told about leaving, we were partly compensated by the realisation that boarding school was no longer a threat our parents could use to keep us inline.

    The next night during dinner, after we had twenty-four hours to digest the news, my parents brought up the topic again so that, as a family, we could openly talk about moving to live with our mother’s parents in Greenacre, Sydney.

    ‘Can we bring Bruno and Tory with us?’ Wayne asked.

    ‘No because your father is going to stay here and look after the dogs, and my laying hens - and run the plantation.’

    ‘You mean you’re not coming with us!’ Wayne said, and stared in disbelief at Dad then Mother.

    ‘As your mother just said, I will stay back and run the plantation so we can keep selling rubber. Besides, someone has to look after the animals until we can find a buyer for the plantation.’

    ‘I, I promise I’ll try harder - at correspondence school, I - I won’t run away. Why can’t we all stay here?’ Wayne said, I nodded in unified agreement with my brother, and I didn’t need to add anything more.

    ‘Look boys, we have given this a great deal of thought. It’s the hardest decision your mother and I have had to make since starting Lahara. We’ve no choice but to leave here and start again. I’m sorry you two, that’s the way of it, and that’s how it has to be.’   

    With that piece of information from Dad silence followed. Until I asked the next important question I needed to know.

    ‘What about my toys? Can I take them with me?’

    ‘Your mother can only manage one large suitcase between the three of you.’

    ‘Darling, your father will bring them all down when he joins us at Pop’s sometime later.’

    Dad was not joking about travelling light; we carried one suitcase between the three of us. On our last night Mother packed that one big suitcase as we sat in the dining area, listened to the radio, and watched the red and yellow lava lamp. One advantage of living in the tropics was that we didn’t need much diversity in clothing apparel. Papua had two seasons, the wet, and the dry season. At our location near the coast we had good falls of rain all year round, so we didn’t even notice any change from the wet to dry season. 

    Mother had explained to me, that once we were settled in Greenacre I was also going to need a special operation. My first operation would be on my right leg, and I knew a second one might be needed for my right eye. I was petrified when I heard this news. My parents were always open about anything that was going to affect us and this was Mother’s way of preparing me.

    ‘Will I have needles?’ I asked.

    ‘Yes’ my mother said, ‘but not like the ones your father gives, these are smaller and they put you to sleep for the operation.’

    I even had the finer details of my leg operation explained to me by Mother. ‘They are going to cut and then stretch the tendons in your right Achilles heel, and then your legs will be the same length.’ The interesting part of learning about the operating procedure was my mother telling me about the legend of Achilles. Achilles was a Greek god, who’s single mortal weak spot was the back of his heel, and who dies as a result of being shot through the Achilles tendons by an arrow. I thought about my operation many times, and I would place my thumb and opposing finger on my right Achilles tendon, I squeezed and winced from the creepy sensation, ‘no wonder he died!’ I was giddy just thinking about the spear piercing the soft sensitive flesh of his heel. On the last night, tucked into my bed, I did not sleep well. At least I wasn’t alone, I think we all tossed and turned that night.

    The next morning we awoke to our last breakfast of powdered milk and vanilla essence egg flip, cocoa pops, fresh baked bread - toasted, buttered, and topped with vegemite, and a slice of fresh pawpaw sprinkled with brown sugar and lemon. Loia and Baraga, the village children, and the rubber tappers, stood near our schoolroom to say goodbye and wish the three of us a safe journey, before our nuclear family of four jumped into the EH Holden to be driven by Dad to the airstrip.

    We waited in the EH Holden for the plan to arrive. Cape Rodney Airstrip was a grass runway that had low-lying scrubland two to three meters high around the grass clearing. The airstrip was close to the Papuan coast, and this allowed Dad to get to the airstrip by taking our boat, La Mer, rather than driving the longer journey by dirt road.

    I loved planes when I was young, and my favourite plane was the Italian built Piaggio P166, with its engines sitting up on the wing above the fuselage, and the propellers facing backwards towards the tail. I’m glad that this traumatic last flight on 16 December 1971 wasn’t in a small Cessna or Piaggio. These aircraft represented the routine departures from Lahara, and they are reserved by me for that thought; seeing a Cessna or Piaggio, will trigger a memory of taking off and landing on Cape Rodney Airstrip. Today a brand new big Skyvan was to take us into Port Moresby. I was surprised that Skyvan’s were able to lift off and fly, and I couldn’t understand how these planes remained suspended in the air. Compared to the beautiful Italian Piaggio the Skyvan looked like an oversized rectangle on wheels, with a set of wings attached as an afterthought.

    It was a few weeks before the family festivity of Christmas and we were all sombre and silent on the drive to the airstrip. We passed the One Lane Bridge sign without a word between the four of us. It would be a long time before we would all have the right conditions to consider playing that game again; the pre-requisite to play One Lane Bridge is to have a unified family that is in the mood for fun and spontaneity. Until then, and over the next three years, each one of us had our own single lane bridge to cross from Papua and into Australia. It was to be a hard journey of restrictive financial change and broad cultural acceptance, for each member of my family.

    The sequence in which we crossed that bridge wasn’t going to be determined by luck, but by our own willingness to love and learn from a foreign strange new community to regain our own sense of belonging and purpose; this all made possible by an older generation helping us financially to get back on our feet.

***

          My first trip to Cape Rodney, with my parents in 1964, was on the day my mother gave birth to me. A trip that has been retold by my dad many times, and specifically when the subject of how to select names for newborn babies cropped up.

        Mother had planted new tomatoes, smoke beans, and endives, in Lahara’s vegetable patch on the clear and blue-sky day of my birth. After two days of solid rain, everyone on the plantation was up early and making good use of the break in the wet conditions. Dad had sent the tappers out to continue weeding around the new saplings, while he worked on a canoe-building project in his sawmill. Wayne, now a robust two and half year old, was being minded on the front lawn by Arina, a local village girl who had been employed to help Mother. Gardening was a necessary chore, but also a plantation task that Mother loved, as it ensured a varied and healthy diet for the family.

        At around eight o’clock my father walked over to the garden to let my mother know that he was taking the tractor to Merani plantation. From there he would borrow Rex’s Land Rover to commence his search for two-inch nails, needed to complete the canoe-building project for the plantation owner in nearby Abau.

        Two weeks prior, Mother had flown into Port Moresby for her routine pregnancy check-up. She had been given the all clear so had no reason to be worried. All was going fine. All was on track for my arrival in two months’ time; the entry by my dad in the Lahara plantation diary covers what happened next:

Rex brought urgent message from Valda, he found me at Otomata Point. I raced back in Merani Land Rover to find Valda bleeding and with labour pains. Nickie was with her, I radioed for Doctor and aircraft, took her to Rodney strip.

        What’s not conveyed in Dad’s Lahara journal entry is the logistics involved in getting Mother to Cape Rodney Air Strip. With one of the major rivers in flood that day, Dad decided it would be better to transport Mother with the tractor and trailer - now parked at Merani plantation - to make fording the river safer. In great pain my mother was placed on a mattress on top of the trailer at Merani with Nickie, who was a plantation neighbour and close friend of my parents, and then driven the remainder of the ten kilometre trip by tractor and trailer. 

        The plane, successfully dispatched from Jackson Airport, had safely touched down at Cape Rodney by the time my parents had arrived. The doctor and nurse were waiting under the shade of the Piaggio’s aircraft wing. Beside the airplane’s glossy white fuselage, the doctor examined my mother and tried to listen for my heartbeat.

        Raising his head from Mother’s stomach he said, ‘I can’t hear a heartbeat Mrs Black; I think you have lost the baby.’

        ‘Are you sure? Please, please check again.’ Mother gripped Dad’s hand as she lay on the stretcher.

        Nickie, standing behind my father stepped forward. ‘Yes, check again, maybe you missed it, I’m sure I felt the baby moving when we were on the trailer.’ The doctor again placed the stethoscope onto my mother’s belly and methodically searched for the sound of my beating heart.

        ‘I’m sorry Mrs Black; I still can’t find a beat.’

        Mother turned her eyes to Dad, squeezed his hand hard one more time. ‘Watch after Wayne, don’t let him out of your sight. Try to get another flight as soon as you can.’

        ‘Valda dear, I’ll be praying for you both. Don’t give up. You felt the baby move too - on the trailer - we both did. I think he’s made a mistake.’ Nickie’s old eyes meet Mother’s eyes. Without needing to say anymore, Nickie had passed every ounce of her understanding and hope that she could give.

        ‘Nickie, thank you.’ They locked hands firmly together for a brief second, then Nickie stepped back to let the nurse take over. Nickie and Dad then watched the nurse assist the doctor with the preparations to board the plane. My mother, the sister and doctor, were then flown to the Port Moresby General Hospital.

          By 1:00 pm, Dad was back at Lahara plantation and trying to arrange for another flight for Wayne and him into Port Moresby. The rest of the Lahara diary entry reads for that day reads:

Labour completed lining cleared area for future planting, spent rest of day weeding house area.

          For a couple of hours at least, my existence and life had ended on Cape Rodney Airstrip in Papua.

          At Port Moresby Hospital, and after Mother had been settled into the maternity ward, a new diagnosis emerged. A nurse doing her rounds, in the late afternoon, came over for a routine check, and listened for a heartbeat. Looking my mother straight in the eyes, the nurse said, ‘The doctor is wrong, I can hear a faint heartbeat.’

          I was born at ten o’clock that night, jaundiced and six weeks premature. The duty nurse commented that my weight was still OK, and had I gone the full term would have been a big baby and weighed more than Wayne’s impressive birth weight. That was my favourite part of my birth story; the thought of being bigger and stronger than Wayne, just for once in my life, made me happy. Humidity cribs and special attention for premature babies were non-existent in Port Moresby in 1964, so Mother and I were left to fend for ourselves in hospital for another two weeks after my birth.

        My Father radioed the hospital at 7:50 am, the next morning, to get news on his wife’s condition. He was greeted with the news that both mother and son were doing fine. My dad said he felt an amazing experience of relief, after having to leave Cape Rodney the day before with a diagnosis that had me dead.

        The next challenge for Dad was getting into to see the newest member of the family, and to ensure that his wife was doing well and had her belongings. Mother had been rushed to hospital without her suitcase and personal belongings to help her through the next two weeks dealing with a baby that had been born six weeks premature. The weather had also closed in once more, low grey skies threatened to keep the rivers swollen, with tropical downpours set to be delivered in the Domara area for the next couple of days. 

        The Lahara plantation diary entries provide a succinct description of the downside of living on an isolated plantation with poor roads and limited communication. It took my dad, another two days to see my mother and me. Dad’s diary entry on the next day reads:

        When it came to naming me my parents had a girl’s name selected, a girl named Sue. My parents agreed because of my premature birth, they needed to act fast in thinking of a boy’s name. My father suggested, as the events leading to my birth had been a death then life experience, that naming me after the airstrip where I nearly ceased to be was the best choice. Mother agreed, and so it was that I was christened Rodney after Cape Rodney Airstrip.

***

        Birth had left me with medical complications that needed routine monitoring in Port Moresby; the right side of my body had not completed development due to my premature birth. I was born with two minor spasticity issues that Mother had detected when I had reached two years of age. The first was my right leg - it was a little shorter than my left leg – and I had a slight limp when I started to walk or run. The second was my right eye - the muscles in the eye were weak and underdeveloped – it turned inwards. From the age of two and half, I was required to wear glasses to support the eye muscles and stop the inward strain on my right eye.

        Every six months we would be taken, in the most suitable vehicle for the road conditions, to Cape Rodney, to catch a small light plane or a Piaggio into Port Moresby. The reason for the scheduled trips was an examination of my right eye by a world-renowned German eye specialist. He had come out to contribute to a medical research assignment in Port Moresby. These short trips away from Domara, helped me solidify the deep sense of belonging I had to Lahara, and it is why my last flight from Cape Rodney has been etched in my memory as if a native tattoo has been etched across my face.

        From an early age, catching an aeroplane from Cape Rodney was something Mother and I enjoyed doing together; thanks to her sense of fun and adventure. I always dreaded the medical examinations though. Anything to do with visiting Port Moresby, for me at least, had medical planned or unplanned strings attached to it.

        I was too young to remember the first couple of medical examinations with this famous eye specialist. One thing is certain, he had gained a respect for Mother from the first consultation we had with him. Being a research specialist, he was not at all interested in the welfare of the patient; according to my mother, he saw me as interesting, but uncooperative and difficult, specimen to study.

        ‘I have never seen a medical professional manhandle a young child like that before.’ I overheard my mother say when she was telling a friend about the Port Moresby eye specialist. One of my mother’s first jobs when she left technical college was to work as secretary for Gibb and Beamon Optometrists in Bankstown. As a result, my mother knew  the correct procedure, and common courtesy, to be expected for medical eye examinations.

        I asked Mother one day, ‘how come he click his heels together - and bows to you - when we go?’

        ‘That rude little man, on our first visit, he pushed your head around so violently. He was so rude to you; I had to push him down a peg.’ Mother replied. ‘When he finished examining you, and he was ready to dismiss us from his presence I turned to him, before he had a chance to close the door in my face, I stared at him for second or two. Then in a quiet calm voice said, “If you ever, and I mean ever, handle my son like that again, I will have the authorities at your door so quickly your head will spin. OK?” I then gently closed the door behind us as we left. After that day, he has always been very good with you - and a perfect gentleman to me.’

        I could understand why he clicked his heels and bowed, with that piece of background information. Mother was tall for a woman, and knew how to carry her height with elegance. Above average height, combined with years of theatrical training in musical theatre in the mid-1950s, meant that Mother had an ability to make entrances and exits memorable when circumstances demanded.  

        Mother balanced Port Moresby’s medical intrusions into my life by showing me the interesting advantages of town life. There were two important undertakings that we did together when stayed at the Port Moresby Women’s Association Hostel for three days. Seeing a town like Port Moresby let me see glimpses of a lifestyle I recognised in the 1960s movies we saw at the sawmill near Marshall Lagoon.

        The first important excursion, what any young boy would want to do, was to visit the toy store and look at the all the toys. Mother loved recounting to family and friends one of adventures we had when I was four years old. On this trip into Port Moresby, I hadn’t two but three medical appointments to attend: eye specialist, leg specialist, and my first dental check-up. And all before going to the toy store!

        After crossing off the first two appointments on Mother’s to do list, we reached the dentist. I became quite upset and angered by the way the dentist wanted to study my teeth. I refused to open my mouth. It was clammed shut. I was four, and with a few medical trips under my belt, and I’d already come to disrespect anybody who had medical desires on any part of my anatomy. After some coaxing by the dentist to open my mouth, I must have had a flash of brilliance, as Mother who told the story said; ‘for no reason we could understand, he finally opened his mouth wide for the dentist.’ He placed his hands around my jaw to manoeuvre my head, and then started his rudimentary examination by exploring with his index finger. I bit down hard! There was a pained scream from the dentist, and as his finger recoiled from my mouth, I leapt from the dentist chair, made a beeline for the door, and out into the corridor, then out onto the safety of the street with oncoming traffic. 

        Poor Mother, quite used to the antics of two wild plantation boys, was quick to come after me with the dentist and dental nurse following. I was then spoken to eye-to-eye; Mother always spoke to us at eye level for any important conversation.

        ‘Don’t you ever. And I mean everrr - do that again,’ was the message. Mother knew how stubborn I could be when it came to medical matters, just getting a smack on the bottom and being marched back into the dentist office wouldn’t have worked. Once placed back in the chair, she knew the dentist would be confronted with a four year old with lockjaw. It was time for negotiation. Mother spoke to me in her calm firm voice. ‘If you co-operate with the dentist, I’ll take you to the toy store, and you can choose one toy, and only one toy, for yourself. OK?’ I must’ve known a good deal when I heard one, the rest of the dentist session went without a hitch.

        The dentist was astonished with the strength and health of my teeth. Our drinking water came from a stream, Dad had a pump installed to send the water to the house via gravity fed rainwater tanks perched on a high tower, and it seems that the natural minerals in the stream water had contributed to the good health of all our teeth. My first filling was not to be until I turned twenty-one; I could have been kinder to the dentist that day given he just wanted to do a routine inspection.

        After the indignity of the teeth inspection, I walked with Mother to the Port Moresby toy store and stared into the big glass window at all the toys. Even at the age of four, I had a good eye for the expensive toy. I selected a rather large aeroplane, a four propeller Lockheed Electra that had flashing lights, and it took large and expensive batteries. A promise was a promise, as I heard Mother say when telling this story many times, and my mother tried hard to persuade me to select another smaller and cheaper toy in the store. I stood firm and Mother kept her word. We emerged from Port Moresby with a Lockheed Electra. This purchase had left Mother’s trip allowance in tatters, and after deducting the taxi fare back to the airport, we managed to scrape home with about ten cents to spare.

        The second special tradition my mother and I would share, was to have lunch at the same café every time we came to Port Moresby. I believe the café was near the Burns Philp Department store. Our lunch date was on the second day, and after the medical appointments had been dispensed with. In the morning, we would go to the Burns Philp Department store with its isles of different goods, and the infamous overhead cooling system of punka fans. As part of Mother’s training on stage, she had a deep interest for fashion; using fashion was one of her strategies for creating memorable entrances and exits. When we did come into town Mother enjoyed the chance to dress up, and blend in with the rhythm of town life. If we were to be spotted in town, Mother wanted to make sure that Wayne and I were smartly dressed, and complemented her good fashion sense. We begrudgingly complied, we preferred to run around bare-footed with just a pair of shorts and no shirt, like the other village children. The uniform for Port Moresby was white-starched short sleeve shirt, light blue shorts, and sandals with white socks.

        After looking inside the store, and waiting impatiently in the women’s fashion section, we would then go to our special café for lunch. Seated at a round dark chocolate table, with dark wooden cross-back chairs and overhead fans, in a café that looked like something out of Casablanca, I would watch the passing pedestrians with the same fascination as the Friday night movie in the sawmill. All that was to be done now was to give the waiter our order; it was the same order for me without fail. A tall glass of crushed ice filled with lemon squash, followed by the freshest homemade bread with lashings of butter, and roasted chicken pieces, with the skin left on, and sprinkled with salt. The sandwich was brimming with chicken, and as thick as a good book. For many, many years, I always thought how decadent a café sandwich was when compared to one that had been made at home. The café was near a major intersection, and another memory of Port Moresby has stayed with me. In the middle of the street intersection, and across from the panorama view of our reflective polished round café table, was a white circular roof. Under the white shelter was a native Papuan traffic police officer. He wore, white starched gloves and a dark uniform, and with his hands, he directed and brought orchestrated rhythm to the cars and people entering and leaving the intersection.

        On one shopping trip in 1969, we were in the Burns Philp lighting department, or Beeps, as the locals would call it, when my mother had spotted an extraordinary lamp. It too was an unplanned purchase, and we again managed to escape the wondrous town with about twenty cents left in Mother’s purse. The extraordinary lamp purchase, which caused the huge financial deficit in the trip allowance, was of course the iconic Lava Lamp of the late 1960s. We both stood in the store mesmerized by red chasing blobs, rising and meandering to the top of the lamp, then gliding, and swirling back down to the bottom. Since television did not exist in Papua this lamp was destined to sit on its own corner-shelf, in our open plan dining and sitting room, so we could all enjoy the changing shapes while listening to the ABC news on the radio.

        The other shopping experience in Port Moresby, after the obligatory medical examinations had been dispensed with, was to visit the Koki markets on a Saturday. I can remember the smell of fresh produce, and the disgusting sight of chewed up red betel nut that would be spat out on the dry dirt around the markets.

        We visited Koki a few times when we stayed in Port Moresby, but I do remember one item I always went and had a look at and admired at the markets. They were small replicas of the full size lakatoi, a canoe complete with wooden outrigger and bark sails. The stalls would sell them and on one of the trips, Mother had allowed me to buy one.

***

        Kneeling beside our small concrete wading pool, I was seething with anger at being wronged by Mother and Dad. ‘I will show them, this will teach them,’ I muttered under my breath as I looked towards the side of the house. Moments before I had run out of my parents’ bedroom, the parental jury had decided I was wrong, I should learn to share my toys with Wayne, and I should let him use my toys!

        Well this would show them, they would be sorry for being so cruel. I grabbed the glasses off my head - the black plastic rimmed spectacles; I had always worn glasses and I can’t remember a world without them. One thing I did know about them was that they were a cause of great concern and expense for my parents. If anything happened to them, my parents had the problem of doing temporary repairs until my next check-up in Port Moresby. On occasions the glasses arm would break, and then be mended with sticking plaster, or dad would reattach them by finding a small screw from another pair. I was never kind to my glasses, but today I was about to be downright cruel to them - and my parents. I was still crying from injustice, it was if some other force was telling me to do this unspeakable act.

        I now had the black arms of the spectacles held hard in both hands; the shiny glass was pointed down at the grey and black stony concrete edge of our wading pool. Then the sound of fine precision glass being scrapped and gouged across cement began, back and forth, and back and forth they went, with each gouge into the shiny glass I could feel the anger leaving my body. That will teach them! When the surfaces of the lenses were no longer shiny – and with the self-righteous pride of a five year old - I put the glasses back on my head, resumed my standing position, and faced the house. I walked back with Bruno to the house - I waited for the reaction of my parents; nothing, surely they could see the scratches before my eyes. No anger, or shock or even questions were cast my way. They couldn’t see, maybe they were the ones who needed glasses!? This would teach them to admonish me for not sharing; I would wait and bide my time. Hadn’t I punished them back? I stood firm, I was not going to say anything until they noticed the vandalism that had occurred to their sacred glasses.

        I learnt a valuable lesson from my parents’ silence, a lesson that has stayed with me. After three days of righteous waiting, they hadn’t said a word and I could wait any longer, I brought it to Mother’s attention that my glasses were scratched. ‘Look at the scratches on my glasses.’ I said to Mother who was kneading dough in the kitchen in preparation for lunch. She turned around with flour on her hands, and pretended to be far-sighted in a way that only parents can, ‘show me’, she said. Mother knelt and peered down in order to counteract her newly acquired near-sightedness. ‘Oh, they’re bad aren’t they? It’s a wonder you can see out of them at all darling. How did that happen?’ She went back to the bread kneading, showing a lot more interest in the blob of dough in front of her than my glasses.

        ‘You did it, you made me cross’, I announced.

        ‘That was a silly thing to do, you should learn to control that temper of yours,’ she said. ‘Oh well, you’ll just have to wear them like that until your next check-up.’ With a strange smile on her face, she continued with her preparations for baking.

        I walked out of the kitchen that day disappointed and hurt, this wasn’t the reaction I had expected. I was not angry this time, I felt as though a part of me had been turned around to look at another part of me, and I was shocked at what I saw. Maybe Mother was right; I could learn to control my temper just a little.

***

        Medical emergencies on Lahara were caused by external events such as snakebites and malaria, and there were sometimes self-inflicted emergencies. We all have our personal scars from self-inflicted knocks and bruises growing up as children, but when you’re still young and living through the experience, they can take on epic proportions by consuming large amounts of your childhood memory bank.

        I was lying in my bedroom looking out towards the setting shadows on the far wall, the glass louvers and setting sun had created light and dark lines against the wall of my bedroom. My stomach did not feel right, it felt queasy as if I had small tadpoles swimming inside, and I felt that I was floating a little above my own body. It would have been a tolerable feeling if it were not for the aching and throbbing in my right index finger. My finger felt like it was jammed in a car door, but with an added burning sensation. How much time had passed, how long had I been asleep?

        I could hear pots and pans in the kitchen, was that my mother, or Loia preparing dinner?

        ‘You’re awake, how’s your finger honey?’ It was my mother’s voice, as I made out her silhouette walking up the hallway to our room. My eyes moved towards the doorway, I murmured, ‘it hurts - it’s throbbing and burning.’

        ‘OK, I will bring you some aspirin and honey.’ That medicine I didn’t mind, but quinine and honey was disgusting. I drifted back to sleep.

        A few hours before my world was different, I was watching the native women weave flax into sitting mats and large carrying baskets. I had walked over to the village looking for children to play with - I missed Wayne, and missed not being able to play our imaginary game of Mother and Father. Our game would start at the wading pool, and most of the time I had to play the role of Mother. In the role of Mother, I had to be a passenger on the toy trailer and be towed around by the tractor; while the pedalling of the tractor was left for the role of Father - that was my brother. I hadn’t seen Wayne for two months. He was living in Sydney with Grandparents and attending first class at Banksia Road Primary School. Dad was working in his sawmill on the plantation, and Mother gone to get fresh eggs from a neighbouring plantation. I was looking for something to do.

        Instead of playing in the creek today, I had decided that I should take up weaving. I still remember the primary dye colours used, with well-made mats and baskets having bright borders of red and green against the weave of the yellow aged flax. The women in the village sat cross-legged on the ground in a circle, with young children running through or around them while they weaved. To cut the flax a large knife is used - a bushman’s knife referred to as a machete. These were the same knives used to hack through the thick jungle undergrowth and help the tappers clear the unplanted sections of land on the plantation. With so much land to clear on Lahara, we had plenty of machetes lying around the village.

        My parents taught us, at an early age, how to treat knives. With extreme caution and respect of a knife’s purpose - that is to cut. We were taught never to run with a knife, always pass a knife with the handle and not the blade, and always cut on a flat and even surface. It was no use forbidding us to use them. The village children used them in the bush when making new bush tracks, or used them in the gardens when weeding. The thought of handling and cutting with a knife wasn’t new to me, what was new to me was chopping the grass flax to start the weaving process.

        I had a specific purpose needed for a knife, to cut. I picked up a machete that was lying on the village bench, then taking a long piece of green flax, I positioned it on the small flat bench in front of me. With my right hand holding the flax - I raised the machete up to the left side of my face - and then with a downward guillotine chop attempted to make a diagonal cut across the piece of flax. It was at that precise moment, with the blade piercing the end of my right index finger that my world slowed, and my memory cells went into full record. My eyes widened with disbelief at the knife passing through my finger like butter. I placed the knife aside in a trance. There was a pool of deep red blood running over the fresh green flax, and onto the grey wooden bench.

        I felt no pain at all. I did not make a sound. The women weaving hadn’t seen what had just happened. I brought my left hand over my right index finger, and held it tight. One thought, and only one thought had entered my head; I must run home and clean the wound, under our bathroom tap, to stop gems and infection. Off I flew leaving the knife and woven mat project behind.

        To get home I had to run through the village camp, and then to a large gully that was adjacent to Dad’s workshop and sawmill. As I approached the top of the gully, I felt anger at what I had just done. I ran down the gully and started to scream - with tears streaming down my face, running up the other side of the gully I continued screaming, on past the workshop and to the flat clearing of our lawn. I ran up the back steps - through the kitchen and straight past the lounge, all was quiet in the house, except for the sound of deep convulsions that had started in my chest. Dad who had witnessed the screaming gully episode, as it was later referred to, had a ‘what the hell was that?’ moment and thought ‘I better just check if Rodney is OK’

        When I reached the bathroom, Dad was doing a slow jog over to the house. Now standing next to the pastel yellow bathroom sink, on its hygienic art deco pedestal, I turned the cold tap on and let the clear medicinal water run over the dangling flesh of my index finger. I watched the bright red coloured water swirl around, and then down the plughole of our pastel yellow sink.

        While I was being hypnotised by the swirling water, Dad had reached the back step. Looking down on the first wooden grey step his question of, what the … was that?, was answered in part by a large red globule of blood, and two rungs further up the steps, another blob of blood. To find me was easy, follow the trail of blood on the tiles in the kitchen and then on through the house. Dad’s casual jog changed gear, he was now a worried parent and triage nurse all in the same instant. I heard the gauze door slam, and within a second Dad was beside me.

        ‘What have you done?’ Dad pulled my hand from under the medicinal water flowing from the tap.

        ‘I was weaving, and I cut my finger, a little bit’, my mind was now heavy with shock, my finger was not right.

        ‘It’s not a cut. You’ve nearly chopped it off son! Now calm down. Do you hear?’

        I looked at Dad kneeling at the sink, while I tried to gain some control over the convulsions in my chest.

        ‘I need you to hold still, hold your chopped finger in your other hand – very very tightly – I’ll get the medical ki-’

          ‘Dad no needles, no needles’ I pleaded. ‘I have washed it all clean, to kill all the nasties’. Why else would I have run home, if it weren’t to administer my own sensible first aid and avoid the risk of a needle! This was what I wanted to say to my father.

        We were about thirty kilometres, by dirt and gravel road, to any outside medical assistance. Dad had many years’ experience as plantation manager in dealing with medical emergencies, anything from childbirth, snakebite, axe wounds, would, and did present themselves, at any point in the day or night, on the plantation. Dad told us of the story of a rubber tapper, working on Lahara plantation, who was chopping wood for the kitchen stove. He was using a two-sided axe, and hadn’t given much thought about its use. The young lad had swung the axe above his head and into the lower part of his back. He was brought to Dad for medical aid. Dad had just opened the trade store to do the monthly tappers pay. With a deep gash down the middle of his back Dad knew if he wasn’t stitched up straight away, he would die from losing too much blood. Dad had no medical sutures on the plantation, so he asked one of the tappers to fetch Lady Silver, one of two horses on Lahara plantation, from the front lawn. Lady Silver was trotted over to the trade store. Dad then prepared a small pot of boiling water on the trade store primus. He went around to Lady Silver’s tail and cut of a few long strands from her. He then boiled the horsehair for about five minutes, and with a large sterilised sewing needle sewed up the wound to stop the bleeding. This allowed Dad the time to get the young villager transported by tractor to a doctor. When the doctor examined the wound he commented that would probably be the first and last time he would see horsehair used as a medical suture.

        In the radio room, I held my finger tightly as instructed, and Dad reached up for the medical kit. Dad, seated at the radio room chair, asked me to release my hold on my finger so he could decide what to do. The tip of my finger, just below the nail cuticle, was holding on by a thread of bone and skin. I had severed through to the bone just behind the back of my fingernail at a forty-five degree angle. Dad’s face grimaced as he looked at it. ‘I’m going to have to bind your finger very tightly, I need you to hold yourself and your finger very still, OK?’ I nodded, relieved there was no mention of a needle, I was still shuddering from the sobs and tears I was fighting back, .

        With care and skill, my father started to save my severed fingertip. He took two matchsticks, from a box of matches lying on the radio room desk, and asked me to open my left hand with my right index finger resting in it. He placed the matchsticks under either side of the deep wound, and with his other hand began to wrap glossy, sticky, medical gauze around the matchsticks and my finger. He had just made the world’s smallest splint. All that was needed now was time for my fingertip to reconnect itself to the rest of my finger.

        I looked down at my straight and white bandaged finger. Dad tucked me into bed, I had lost a fair bit of blood. In a short time I fell into a deep sleep. I was lucky I didn’t lose my fingertip, and I was lucky to have learnt to use the utmost care when handling knives. I now have an interesting scar I can look at, it reminds me of the  love and care Dad had provided in saving my finger.

        My parents never stopped me from using knives after that event, nor did they rouse on me for being careless the day I nearly chopped off my finger. It was something that didn’t need to be spoken about; the time my body took to heal my finger took care of one part of my learning, and Dad having to change the dressing regularly took care of the rest. Our parents were clever at knowing when to say less to us, so we could learn more. This approach to parenting, saying less is sometimes better than saying more, was the same approach used by my parents in the glasses and wading pool incident.

***

        I knew when I was getting a case of Malaria, and I must have contracted it about five or six times while living on Lahara plantation - you could feel it coming on, just like a case of the flu. My parents always tried to ensure that we had our daily dose, and later weekly dose, of a small white quinine tablet, which was administered in the morning, or sometimes later in the afternoon.

        The taste of quinine is the bitterest thing I have ever tasted. To define the word bitter in the dictionary you simple need to write, ‘tastes like quinine.’ No wonder the mosquitos wouldn’t want to suck your blood, as they must have taste buds as well, and a human dosed up with quinine must have tasted terrible. ‘Open wide, here comes a plane landing in your hangar’ my mother would say, as a stainless steel spoon containing a crushed quinine tablet and honey appeared in front of my shiny black rimmed glasses. I’m not sure what Wayne did, I suspect that as he was older he just took the tablet and swallowed it whole. For me, the solution was to have the quinine tablet mixed with honey on a spoon. What this did, was ruin the sweet taste of honey for me. Even after years of living in Sydney, without a quinine tablet to be found for thousands of miles, I could still taste a bitter after taste with honey; all as result of my weekly dose of quinine.

        Tonic water has quinine in it, just a tiny smidgen, but if you have ever had tonic water imagine that taste amplified by one hundred percent. I know that some people love the taste of bitter, as my parents would drink tonic water at Lahara, to this day I don’t how. It was probably the other clear liquid, from another exotic labelled bottle, they were mixing into the tonic.

        If there was a downside to living on Lahara plantation, it was the complete lack of outside support for medical emergencies, like Malaria. The quinine tablet was no guarantee that you would not succumb to this terrible disease, as once the lifecycle of mosquito bite has started, it remains in the body for several years. Dad was my guardian; and he was my professional general practitioner and Mother my nurse. If it was a life threatening medical emergency, just two options were available. Radio Port Moresby for medical assistance and have a plane sent down, or travel towards Kupiano, about thirty-six kilometres from Lahara, and across dirt roads to a missionary hospital and resident GP.

        The day I came down with a serious case of Malaria, the village children, Wayne, and I had all been playing in the bush at the far side of the house. A little stream fed into the main creek that ran behind the village; this was the same stream that Dad had set-up a generator to pump water up to the water tower and then into the house. On the day I became sick we were further upstream, nearer to the village garden, where the villagers grew yams, a root vegetable similar to sweet potato, and corn for eating. We were all following Wayne on the dirt track. The late afternoon sun made long dappled patterns across our shirtless uniforms, and we walked single file to keep our bare feet on the well-trodden and hard-pressed dirt track. We had just past the water pump.

        Dad had a rule for all who lived on Lahara plantation; no one was allowed to go to the toilet on the upstream part of this track. This included number-ones as well as number-twos. Doing a pooh was an informal and spontaneous event for the villagers. They would find a quiet spot in the bush, squat down to do their business, wipe their bottom with leaves, and then cover up the pooh with a few more leaves. You just had to be careful when you stepped on leaves under a tree, as sometimes you would hear a squish and then a familiar odour waft up from under the leaf pile, and this was a good reason for us to stick to well-trodden paths. Most villagers, when nature called, would not stray too far from the track in case of snakes, wild boars, or cassowaries stumbling upon them in the midst of being at their most vulnerable.

        As we approached the end of the track, I felt a wave of tiredness come over me, and my joints began to ache. It swept over me like the smoke from a village cooking fire. My senses were heightened. I could hear a mosquito circling my ear and smell the laying hens in the chicken coup as they started to settle-in for the night. I heard the sound of Bruno barking, and just wanted to get home so I could fall asleep. As the side of our home came into view, I waved goodbye, and the village children turned off onto a separate fork that went to their village. I followed Wayne home and into the kitchen for a class of cold water, and then made my way to our bedroom fell asleep.

        ‘Rodney, Rodney wake up, kai is on the table.’ As I awoke, I could see Mother rocking my foot back and forth.

        ‘Are you feeling OK darling?’

        ‘I’m hot Mother.’ I replied. I sensed Mother’s concern as she came forward and I felt a soft and familiar hand push away my hair from my forehead, while she knelt down to touch her lips to my brow.

        ‘You’re burning up.’

        As the tears started rolling down my cheeks, ‘no needles, please, no needles.’ I curled my body into a foetal position.

        ‘Shhhh, rest, and I’ll call your Father to come and look at you’

        It was no use – we all knew the drill - Malaria meant one thing, needles, the sound of boiling water, and the smell of penicillin in the house. As kai was on the table I knew my father would not be far way. I heard Mother calling ‘Bahhrree’ from the kitchen window, within minutes Dad had made his way from the workshop, up the back steps and the nurse was giving the doctor all the medical details. Within seconds after that, my father appeared at my bedroom door with the thermometer in hand. This instrument marked the start of a battle between my dad, a penicillin needle, and me. It was war with any human responsible for inflicting the dreaded needle. First, the preliminary routine of measuring the temperature, used to work out how much of the vile substance had to be injected into my veins, the higher the temperature, the higher the amount of penicillin to be injected. The gentle voice of mother was replaced with the deep voice of my father. ‘Rodney, I need you to sit-up so we can measure your temperature.’

        As my father stepped forward, my mother followed with a white hand towel and silver ice bucket of cold water. I think it’s funny how an ice-bucket, designed for champagne and festive occasions, can take on a menacing medicinal appearance when you’re sick. Placing his big hand on my forehead, the thermometer appeared in his other hand and glinted against the neon light of my bedroom.

        ‘He is burning up this time, isn’t he’ as he directs his comment to my mother. ‘Open up’ my dad commands.

        I know the drill, as I feel the cold silver and glass tube stab the underside of my tongue.

        ‘Now stay still.’ My dad is watching the seconds pass on his wristwatch, as I look up at the medical staff. He pulls the thermometer out, ‘104’ he declares.

        ‘You’re running a high fever. I will need to give you a penicillin injection to help bring down the tempera-’

        ‘NO, NO, NOOOO,’ I scream in a well-practised automatic response, as I burst into a fit of rage and tears. The doctor leaves as the nurse steps forward to calm me down, and administer the cold towel from the medical bucket across my forehead.

        The sound and smell of medical needles being prepared for target practise on Lahara, is another tattooed memory. When I see 1960s cutlery and silverware presented in grey blue display boxes, with the ornate silver latch at the front, I don’t see them as other people do. My thoughts go to my father’s needle set, in a blue grey display case, just like a cherished silverware service given on a wedding day. When you opened this case, instead of fine reflective cutlery, you’re confronted with a set of Frankenstein-esque needles and matching glassware. They had a needlepoint so large that you could push cotton thread through it, just like the eye in a sewing needle selected by a longsighted parent.

        The needles first had to be sterilised by boiling, along with the hypodermic glass. I could hear everything, to getting the needle set down off the radio shelf, to opening the kitchen cupboard door, to bringing out the saucepan, to igniting the gas stove, and then to that deafening sound of glass and metal hitting against the pot as they were boiled for ten minutes. You wouldn’t think that needles smell. They do! It’s the residue penicillin in the hypodermic cylinder that gives off a wretched smell. I know the smell of a boiled needle. While sterilisation occurred, I would be thrashing my head from side to side and working myself up into a state of anxious despair, as the next part of the medical ritual played out. On this occasion, I was too weak, the tears rolled down my cheeks as Mother calmed me down with her quiet soothing voice, and gentle sponging of head, neck, and torso. Preparation of the needle took twenty minutes; to me the time dragged on, and it felt like hours.

        While the needles were cooling, ready for Dad to administer the injection, the next step in the injection process took place. Wayne or Dad would go over to Lahara Village and ask if Loia and Baraga could come over to help administer the injection. I knew that I must have these injections, or I could die, but I couldn’t accept being stabbed in the bottom, and enduring the inevitable burning and stinging sensation that these ancient torture devices produced. A penicillin injection meant using the largest needle in the set, despite the set containing smaller petite needles. To this day, I cannot understand what the smaller needles were for, as I never saw those ones being used. Ever!

        The next step was to get me from my bedroom into our parents’ bedroom. Dad needed to administer the needle on a large enough bed to pin me down. I never received an injection from Dad without giving him a damn good fight! Within twenty minutes, Dad would appear in the doorway, and waiting in the hallway behind him would be Loia and Baraga to help administer the lethal injection. At this point I would start screaming, ‘no, NOOOO, get away, NOW, you’re not getting me, get away from me. NOW!’

        The nurse never got involved, this was something that was between the doctor, his assistants, and me. I always hoped my mother was upset at seeing my defensive and terrified reaction to needles. However, we all knew that one way or another I would lose this battle. Even in a weak state, I knew that the area of my body that the doctor was after was one cheek of my bottom. To give me the injection, they had to catch me lay me face down on the bed, and stop me thrashing about by pinning me down, so I wouldn’t wriggle during the injection.

        The game was on, and I was up off the bed heading for the door, Dad’s arm went out like a native spear. ‘Rodney stop it, you will just make yourself worse. I will have to give you two injections if you don’t cut this out.’ It was no use, I had received needles from him ever since I can remember, and I knew that this was going to hurt.

        I darted straight into my parent’s room, the radio room being blocked by Loia and Baraga, and after circling my parent’s bed twice, I was cornered by Baraga on one side and Loia on the other. From here it was a matter of holding me, and then pinning me face down to the bed. I would sink into a rage of tears and screams. As far as my doctor was concerned, he just needed a reasonable stable and straight backside to target the dart into, just like the pigskin dartboard he aimed at the Tavern on Saturday night. This he did, and then my nurse would be by my side to comfort me, and help ease the chest convulsions that would have overtaken my body. Both Loia and Baraga would say, ‘we go now Taubada’ and leave the bedroom to return to the village. For this particular bout of malaria, my needle phobic reaction had pushed my temperature further up the scale. When the post needle stab of the cold thermometer hit the underside of my tongue, I was starting to feel nausea and the walls in the bedroom started spearing off on different angles.

        ‘Barry, his temperature is running at 105 now, what will we do?’ My mother and father knew this was getting into dangerous territory.

        ‘I will call for medical back-up on the radio.’ My Father replied.

        I rested my head into my knees, while I heard the familiar sounds from the radio room and my Dad’s voice. ‘Yes, have done that, he is still running a temperature of hundred and five, repeat one o five, over.’ When my Father appeared at the door, he explained that I was going to get into a cool bath to calm and bring my temperature down. We didn’t have a bath, but the shower had enough recess depth to allow the water level to come to about fifteen centimetres. The shower was long, so they stretched me out, covered the drain with a washcloth, and Dad ran the cold shower as my mother knelt beside me and sponged my body.

        This worked too well, and they managed to bring my core body temperature down too low, I now had the reverse problem. When I was taken from the shower the shivers and shakes took over, and my teeth banged together, I thought my teeth were going to fall out. My Dad had brought my mattress into their bedroom, so I could be watched all night. It must have been a long night for my parents; to me it was just snippets of intrusions from the outside world as my body dealt with the internal battle of fighting malaria.      In one of those snippets of intrusion, my mother peered down on me while I tried to work out why the whole room was moving and spinning.

        My mother swept her hand across my forehead, and I could see the outline of my father behind her. ‘Tell me what you’re feeling now.’

        I looked at her and replied, ‘I feel guilty’

        ‘Guilty, darling?’ She looked back at my dad. ‘Guilty? He’s nearly six, what’s he done at that age to feel guilty about?’ Mother threw my father a perplexed look. Looking back at me, and with the same calm voice ‘darling, what do you feel guilty about?’

        ‘The room it’s moving and will not stay still’, I replied. Then, a wave of realisation hit both parents. With a sense of relief and faint laughter in my mother’s voice ‘You’re feeling giddy, is that it?’

        I nodded ‘yes I’m giddy.’ This became another story my mother and father would add to the list of misplaced word stories of Rodney, the little professor.

        I awoke in the morning in a lather of sweat, and I could feel the wet sheets around my body. I was listening for the familiar dawn morning sounds of the plantation coming to life, the sound of the rooster crowing, the sound of wood being chopped, the sound of dog paws trotting on the wooden floor in the lounge room. I was staring up at the corner of my parent’s bedroom ceiling, wondering why the angles of the walls now looked normal, when I heard my Dad’s voice in the radio room ‘Rodney needs assistance straight away, he has a very serious case of malaria - over.’

        ‘Roger - Barry, you will need to bring him over to our plantation, we’ve a trained doctor that can look at him - over.’

        ‘Roger - yes, right away. Trevor tells me the bridge is flooded, can you please arrange for someone to meet us on your side of the river - over.’

        ‘Roger - yes, will get transport from our side - over.’

        ‘Roger that - I’ll bring the tractor and trailer rather than the car. Expect to reach you at the river ford about seven hundred hours - over.’

        ‘Roger - Barry, pack clothes for Rodney and Valda, we may need to organise a flight to Port Moresby - over.’

        ‘Roger that - over and out.’ As I heard Dad click off the radio receiver.

        My mother appeared, in my view. ‘You’re awake, you gave us all an interesting night last night’, there was lightness and tenderness to Mother’s voice, that made me feel a little better. In her right hand was a glass of orange tang, with two big ice cubes resting at the top. ‘Try and drink some of this’. As I lifted myself up, Mother knelt down, and Dad entered the room, looking straight at us.

        ‘We’re going to get you to a doctor at Merani plantation OK’

        ‘No more needles’ I pleaded. As I watched them leave the bedroom.

        ‘We are going to have to use the tractor and trailer, and we may have to get him into Port Moresby’ I heard Dad say to Mother in the hallway.

        ‘We should be prepared for a trip to Port Moresby. He is still getting chills, sweats, and high fevers. He may end up with pneumonia as a consequence of the malaria.’

        When I awoke again, I could hear the familiar sound of the Massey Ferguson’s motor and the squeaking of the trailer’s springs, we were being bounced towards the flooded river and Merani plantation. I was still on my mattress, and I could feel my mother’s lap beneath my head. She was looking straight ahead, as I watched the trees and grey sky pass above her. I moved my head a fraction to the side, within an instant Mother’s eyes were looking down at me.

        ‘It’s OK, you fell asleep after your juice, you’re on the trailer to see the doctor.’ I nodded and looked over to see Loia and two of the village tappers sitting on the end of the trailer with the legs dangling off the back. Getting to see a real doctor, in the Domara River area, meant bringing a few extra helpers along to cater for the unexpected road conditions. Unexpected road conditions included, being bogged, removal  of a fallen tree across the track, helping someone else who was bogged, or in this case, being carried across a swollen river to awaiting transport, on the other side of the river, to continue the journey to see the doctor.

        Once we reached the river the continuation of my journey, to see the doctor, was to be in one of the fastest ambulances that the territory of Papua had available.

***