Brendan James Murray - The Drowned Man: A True Story of Life, Death and Murder on HMAS Australia

This book is dedicated to the men who lost their lives while serving aboard HMAS Australia . It is also for the thousands of Australians in the army, navy and air force who served in silence during the Second World War, and those who continue to do so today.

The water in a vessel is sparkling; the water in the sea is dark. The small truth has words which are clear; the great truth has great silence.

Rabindranath Tagore

Prologue

John Rileys first thought was that he had been punched in the back.

He stumbled, his balance unsettled by the ships gentle movements and the near-blackness of the night. The crew were under strict orders: not so much as a match could be lit on the upper deck, lest it be spotted by some unseen enemy out in the darkness. Theyd been warned that a Japanese lookout could spy a tiny flame on the horizon and bring destruction raining down upon them. Death was omnipresent in the Solomon Sea.

The young sailor managed to stay on his feet, but he was surprised to feel that the wind had been completely knocked out of him. The hit didnt seem that hard, he later told the medics. It would have been Albert Gordon who threw the punch; he was the loudmouth with the gift of the gab, a salesman before the war, and a good four inches taller than his diminutive offsider, Edward Elias. And Gordon was the qualified leading rate. He was in charge.

When Riley turned to retaliate, he saw the knife, already slick with his own blood, and realised hed been stabbed.

The two men came at him. Before Riley could react, he was being gripped by both arms, tough fingers gouging into his flesh as they dragged him toward the guard rail. Riley wrenched against his attackers, the stink of sweat filling his nostrils in the hot night. He may have been outnumbered, but he was no pushover. Like his attackers, Riley was a stoker, a lower-deck man, hardened by back-breaking labour, the heat of blast furnaces, claustrophobia. At nineteen, he had already experienced more than most men would in a lifetime.

The three stumbled but managed to remain upright. Gordon and Elias dragged their victim further toward the guard rail and the yawning abyss of the ocean beyond, then Riley found his strength and pulled them back inboard.

For the moment, he was too shocked to cry out for help.

As Riley struggled like a child in some inescapable nightmare, the real world inched onward, indifferent. HMAS Australia s huge fans whirred their dull, monotonous drone, and the bow waves sighed as the ship navigated the Louisiade Archipelago, about two hundred kilometres east of New Guinea. The perfect place for a pleasure cruise, if there wasnt a war on.

There was a gentle laugh from somewhere near by. Men at the anti-aircraft guns were about to go off watch for the night.

Riley opened his mouth to cry out, but almost instantly there was an arm around him, crushing more air from his lungs, so that the best he could manage was a muffled groan. Still he fought on. Gordon and Elias wanted him over the side, he knew; if he weakened for a moment, that would be it. Nobody would see him fall or hear the splash. If he was lucky, he might find himself bobbing alone, far beyond swimming distance from any land, knife-wound ringing the dinner bell for the sharks. If he was unlucky, hed be chewed to pieces by the propellers.

Suddenly, one of his attackers released an arm. The man stood before him, an indistinct, sweat-slick shadow whose only clothing white tropical shorts seemed to glow with an eerie luminescence.

The shadow began to stab Riley over and over.

He was jolted by the blows and heard the wet chump chump of the blade entering his body but felt little pain, the shock was so great. At last, he managed to cry out.

From the ships bridge, Lieutenant Commander Jack Donovan heard what sounded like an animal squealing. It was exactly like a pig being killed, he would later say. I have heard pigs being killed many times and that is what it reminded me of. It was a squeal and therefore, to me, remarkable.

On the compass platform above the three fighting men, Signal Boatswain Charlie Nichols was irritated by a laughing, screaming kind of noise. As Riley fought for his life, Nichols shouted for the three men to keep the racket down.

By then, many sailors in the nearby darkness had heard the commotion. They almost all dismissed it as skylarking, which was common among the sailors, most of whom were under 25 years of age. Riley was only a teenager on the night of the attack, Gordon and Elias 24.

Riley slipped and fell to the deck with a teeth-shaking thud, barely conscious, his cries coming out in spluttering gurgles. He lay in his own blood, which looked as black as crude oil in the gloom. One of the men was leaning over him, and again Riley felt the knife entering his body. Theyre killing me , he thought, the edges of his vision dimming, thoughts swirling. He needed to cry out for help; he needed to run away; he needed to hang on so he could give his attackers names to somebody; he needed to keep them from throwing him over the side.

This last thought shrieked loudest, and in response he actually pushed himself toward the guard rail, dodging the bloodied hands of his attackers, who were trying to lift him. Riley gripped the cold steel of the rail with every ounce of strength he had left.

The man with the knife bent down, jaw set, and began hacking into his wrists, opening them to the bone.

Riley let go. It was over. One attacker was at his shoulders, the other at his feet, and they were lifting him. At that moment the pain hit him in a white-hot, shimmering wave.

Then he heard feet running along the deck. Not one person approaching, but many.

Maybe, he thought, there was a chance.

Chapter 1

Breaking the Lens

There is no doubt that Australian military history particularly popular history of the kind found in mainstream books, films and television series is reported and viewed through specific lenses. The most common is the hero lens. A staple on Anzac and Remembrance Day, this perspective highlights the ideal of the ruggedly masculine soldier. He walks the Kokoda Track, scrambles up the crumbling cliffs at Gallipoli, holds firm at El Alamein. In many ways, he is represented as the quintessential Australian.

Perhaps the next most common is the victim lens. Across the Pacific rim, stories of victimhood often relate to imprisonment by the Japanese during the Second World War.

A third lens, that of the villain, is reserved almost exclusively for the enemy.

The problem is that these lenses make many people invisible. There are always those who for whatever reason fail to slot comfortably into accepted stereotypes of the Honourable Serviceman. There are the minorities. There are some who tread a questionable line of morality or are outright criminals, victimising civilians and other servicemen every bit as brutally as our most sadistic military opponents.

For me, the safe old lenses began to crack during a chance encounter with an elderly man who told me a shameful and horrific story. Little did I know that I was about to stumble upon a 70-year-old murder mystery that had never before come to light.

***

The year 2013 was to be a historic one for the Royal Australian Navy. Two years earlier, Vice Admiral Ray Griggs, then chief of the RAN, had invited more than fifty countries to participate in an International Fleet Review to commemorate the centenary of the navys fleet first entering Sydney. Each nation was asked to send a warship or historic vessel to Sydney Harbour for the event, to be held over a week in early October.