The Barbarians

It was practically inevitable that I gave this book five stars. Peter Pinney's writing just strikes a chord with me. He makes good decisions with his writing - he balances things perfectly for my reading requirements - of course that is not to say it will suit other peoples writing.

According to his own description, this book is a ‘narative memoir, based on diaries kept by Peter Pinney secretly while on active duty in the army during World War II in New Guinea.'

It is a very honest book. Pinney (referred to in the book as Signaller Johnson, later Private Johnson, more often Johnno) is straight forward in presenting his frustrations - especially with the officers, and the decisions that they make. He is also emotionally engaged in his writing, and he writes about his friends in a very different way than he engages with them. At one point he writes: [P172]
“When the fellas lose a good mate, they don't go around weeping and wailing, and beating their breasts. They mainly get morose and short-tempered; pissed off. When a close friend is walking around alive you don't go up and cuddle him and tell him what a beaut bloke he is; he'd thump you. He'd think you'd gone queer. You just gladly accept him as he is, and enjoy his company. You sort of take him for granted, because it is a living and continuing relationship and you don't want to put the mockers on it by imagining what might happen to him. He's alive, he's there.But when he is suddenly dead...Everything is too late then. Too late to tell him what a bonzer bloke he was. Too late to tell him you'd chop your legs off if that would bring him back. Too late for him to ever know you loved him like a brother.And so you draw into yourself, all snaky and snarly.”

As you can tell from the short quote above, the writing is in a very Australian vernacular. There is even a glossary at the rear for ‘international' readers. It contains some military terms, but also colloquial Australian terms - cop the crows; come in on the growder; durry; having a butcher's, etc, and there are some great lines which don't get a translation - a couple I could find after the fact:
[P165]: This morning we only had a dingo's breakfast - a piss and a look a round. There is hardly anything left to eat...
[P171]: Struth, you blokes look like a hatful of dogs' assholes.

But as well as being funny as hell in places, and a pleasure to read, with great description of the situation, it is more than that. It is a powerful book, because the writing is so accessible, written as the thoughts of a man with not only the ability to question, but the need to question, to object, to rebel and play his part in trying to be a good man.

Pinney expresses some of the pointlessness a soldier feels in war, and how uninformed, how frustrated with decisions made by others, the loss of the lives of good men, and men in general. He is not PC, he shows little remorse for the Japanese, and he is conditioned to feel no affinity for them, the killers of his mates. Although he regularly sees how ineffective the Japanese are - in their training, their ability, the weaponry they have, the tactics they use, there is still no remorse in the slaughter that is his job.

One of the big themes of the book is the ineffectiveness of the officers. Not all of them - there are some he regards as good men and good leaders, but for the most they are described as petty, ineffective, and dishonest. They are described as regularly hoarding food meant for the men (big caches of chocolate hidden in their rooms, confiscating items from the men for their own use, and poor tactical decision making and pointless objectives, of winning positions (at the cost of lives) and immediately withdrawing from those. There is a particular Lieutenant who directly commands Johnno, who takes an instant dislike to him, and vindictively looks for opportunities to discredit and punish him.

The opening lines of the prologue read:
It was all Lieutenant Zubric's fault, as much as anyone's.He kept throwing out the challenge. Anyone found keeping diaries or notes, or possessing a camera, would be court marshalled. He loved court marshalls, Zubric did. A gingery little man, stuffed with self importance and all the Ration D he stole: an open invitation for a man to cheat. So. like a naughty kid, I used to scribble in this little diary when he wasn't looking, because I didn't have the nerve to punch him on the nose as I would have loved to - and just as well I didn't. (Ration D is chocolate, and the men were supposed to get issued it regularly. At times, it didn't get past the officers.)

At one point Zubric sends Johnno back to HQ to report to the Major with a note. Johnno and his mates steam it open of course, and read it before he delivers it. Pinney writes: ‘The best part reads “This man is suitable only for digging postholes”.' Johnno was to be court marshalled under the charge of ‘refusal to go out on patrol'. What the letter didn't explain was that Zubric decided that signallers were no longer to carry weapons on patrol - leaving them to face the enemy unarmed. It works out, of course, but this is where Signaller Johnson becomes Private Johnson.

I have probably written more than I needed, but it is an easy book to discuss. This story covers the period 30.01.1943 - 08.07.1943. There are two books which continue on this story - although they are obscure, and out of print. These three books were printed in small runs by Queensland University Press in 1988, 1990 & 1992. The trilogy was then published as one in 1998 as Signaller Johnston's Secret War - again obscure.

The Barbarians only, is printed on demand (or ebook) by lulu.com.

5 stars.

Australian author Peter Pinney is now largely unknown sadly. He is mainly known for his travel writing. I have read The Road to Anywhere and was impressed enough to start looking out for Pinney's works. They are hard to find and so far have only been able to secure his wartime trilogy and Dust On My Shoes.

This book, The Barbarians, is in fact the first part of his wartime trilogy Signaller Johnston's Secret War. Pinney was an active diary writer all his life and these three books are the result of that activity. The keeping of a diary was a military offence in WW2 by Australian soldiers hence the title. This novel has a biographical feel to it. To say this book reeks of authenticity would be an understatement. Written in true strine we are presented with a foot soldiers view of the war in Papua New Guinea in 1943 and what a warts and all account. With nothing but contempt for the vast majority of the officers and the Japanese enemy, Signaller Johnston gives us his contribution to a little known war zone.

Johno observes his peer group. “Well, there's some pretty hard cases in our mob too; and some are as old as twenty-seven, twenty-eight” he says. One of his mates, Wacker, he describes as “pretty old”. Over 25 and you are old! Johno writes about food a lot. Soldiers dream of food. An old Women's Weekly is a treasured item where the recipe section gets a good look when the boys are eating their sparse rations. Rather a roast than Betty Grable muses Johhno at one point. The cultural reference brought back memories of my youth as a young apprentice working with old soldiers. Corked tipped Adaths are the cigarette of choice, I recall an old bloke smoking these as he told me a few tales. At one point an officer is reading a Pix magazine. Now long gone it had pinups galore.

The attitude of Johnno and his fellow soldiers towards the Japanese is a regular discussion. At one time he asks if the Japanese are genuinely human and that though history would judge the war as just it “....may consider out attitudes as malign, vindictive and unfeeling” That the men who would have once “grieved” the death of a sparrow now had a “casual, inanely grinning” genocidal attitude towards their enemy. Contempt about officers is prevalent. At one point a seconded Johnno has an officer on his tail over solo attacks on the enemy position and sarcastically retorts to the officer as to what the penalty is “in your outfit for shooting at the Japs”

The battle scenes are some of the best I have read. We are even given maps to assist the reader with the troop movements. This is a top of the shelf read.
Problems? I suspect that the language of this book may not assist with a wider reading audience. The narrative make use of racist language. Not just towards the Japanese but also the local people who have been caught up in this war not of their making and that can make uncomfortable reading. In my opinion a modern audience may not be keen on this but the truth is that this was the way of the world in those times. The language of this book was the language of the older workers in my youth.

This is as good as the brilliant The Long Green Shore by John Hepworth. These two books are the best Australian War novels I have read. Highly recommended.