Meat Pies & Russian Spies: The Third Tibu & Tovaira Novel

By Andy Fletcher

This book is the third Tibu & Tovaira Novel, and is set in South Australia, and Papua New Guinea. It begins in the early sixties semi-rural Belair South Australia where some of the neighborhood boys overhear a Russian message on a crystal radio set. This triggers a series of events which has the boys hiding two Russian Defectors from the KGB. Ramale Sorcerer Tomarum has a vision of one of the Australian boys being shot by the Russians, so sends Tibu & Tovaira travelling through time from 1942 War torn Rabaul to the Coorong in South Australia. The book draws once again on the wonderful Tolai Culture of East New Britain. Sorcery and a secret Men’s Society. The book also sees Tibu & Tovaira heading off to Tol to investigate reports of a massacre by the invading Japanese in 1942.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu Publishing Services
• Release date: Apr 5, 2020
• ISBN: 9781684740086

Andy Fletcher

Andy Fletcher was born in Adelaide South Australia on February 8th. 1947. He was not a good student and ran away from school at the tender age of ten. He was dragged back kicking and screaming and completed an apprenticeship in automotive engineering with the only Porsche agents in Adelaide. He played cricket and Australian football and got a job in the Bougainville Copper Mine Pit Workshop in 1970. He was very active in the local community in Papua New Guinea, where he resided for thirty-six years. His family still lives in PNG, but he now resides in the Cairns suburb of Manoora, where he has kidney dialysis three times a week.

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FLETCHER

Copyright © 2020 Andy Fletcher.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored,

or transmitted by any means—whether auditory, graphic, mechanical,

or electronic—without written permission of the author, except in the

case of brief excerpts used in critical articles and reviews. Unauthorized

reproduction of any part of this work is illegal and is punishable by law.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents,

organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products

of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

ISBN: 978-1-6847-4005-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6847-4008-6 (e)

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in

this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views

expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the

views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

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Lulu Publishing Services rev. date: 02/28/2020

Novels By The Same Author

1   A Dimdim in Paradise.

2   Tibu and Tovaira Defy the Rising Sun.

3   Tibu and Tovaira & the Sorcerers Time Travel.

Acknowledgements

A Big thank you to Jurgen Beck for his assistance with the Publishing of this book. To Richard for trying his best for the Outer districts of ENB. To my good friend Bilson Nanuk for his support. And a special mention to Dokoi from Butlivuan, Duke of York Islands

Andy Fletcher Manoora, February 2020.

Dedicated to the memory of Gideon Kakabin of Nangananga who gave me much advice when writing my books. Also dedicated to the memory of Bill and Ivy Morris of Belair, Mr and Mrs Strazdins of Heathfield, and Cyril and Ruby Harrold of Belair.

Also a special dedication to the people of the Duke of York Islands in Papua New Guinea, especially at Palpal, Butlivuan, Watara, and Kabilomo. My Family at Vunamami, my second family at Turaples, at Tembin, and Hidden Valley Morobe Province, PNG. Not forgetting the people of Ramale Village Kokopo PNG. A special mention to my dearly departed friend Jim King of Kavieng, RIP Jim.

CHAPTER 1

Meat Pies

The candle flickered as a gust of wind found a way through a crack in the rusty old galvanised iron, fibro, and sugar bag wall of our fort. The shadows darted eerily here and there on the walls as the flame nearly died. I quickly protected the flame with my hand; matches were in short supply. Mum would get cross with me when she couldn’t find any matches to light the copper in the laundry. So, we took it in turns stealing matches from home. There were four of us in the fort that night. Our fort, like all those before it, also consisted of old pieces of iron, wooden planks and broken up tea chests. All the material used in the construction came from the Kalyra Sanatorium dump. It was perched precariously between two large gum trees at the bottom of the gully behind our house in the Adelaide Hills. Joe Hicks was the oldest; he was Fifteen years old, then there was me, Andy, I was Fourteen, Llew Price was Thirteen, and his younger brother Stephen, Eleven. We were known locally as the Bowman Ave. Billy Lids

Gee, that was close, we have no matches left, I’ll get a box from home tomorrow, Joe said, Anyway, what are we going to do tomorrow? Joe continued, looking around at us in the flickering light. After a short discussion we decided to go and check for any new building materials from the dump, then get some more arrows for our longbows from the Retreat house

Echoing clearly across the gully came a shrill coo-ee from Joe’s Mum, Joe had to go home. We all agreed it was getting late, so we clambered down the ladder nailed to the tree. Then slowly wandered back up the side of the gully and split up at my back fence. Joe lived further down the gully from our house, which was on top of the ridge, and Llew and Steve lived on the other side of Joe’s house.

After the three boys had been swallowed up by the darkness, I climbed over the fence, careful not to catch my "Jatz Crackers" on the barbed wire on top of the chain-link wire fence. Then made my way up the path towards our house. It was quite chilly the cold wind was whipping the leaves on the branches of the gum trees into a frenzy. The street light on the corner of Bowman Ave and Ardrossan Ave made ghostly shapes on the walls of the laundry as it intermittently shone through the restless branches. I decided to sprint the last ten metres and burst through the back door into our kitchen startling my mum who was putting the jug on to make Tea.

"What’s your big hurry, the Boogieman chasing you?" Mum joked as she swilled some boiling water around in the teapot and then added the tea leaves and boiling water.

Take a cuppa in for your Gran, when it is ready, Mum said. Gran was sitting in the warm front room near the wood-burning combustion heater, and her eyes lit up when her favourite Grandson brought in a cup of tea for her. I had to answer all her questions once more, Gran was in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease, so I quite often had to answer the same questions many times. I settled down to wait for Gran to doze off.

I had already finished breakfast, and for extra fuel had a large orange in my pocket, when Joe and Llew came running up the hill next morning. Steve hadn’t finished his jobs so wasn’t allowed out until he had done so. The three of us happily wandered off towards the Kalyra Farm and the dump wondering what great treasures we might find there. We climbed over the back fence of the horse paddock at the back of the farm. It being a Saturday we knew Bill Morris would be working. Bill worked six days a week and was replaced on Sundays by Old Pa Palmer. He was a grumpy old bugger who would chase us out if he found us anywhere on the farm. Bill though, was a kindly old gentleman who enjoyed us kids coming and helping out. When I was no more than a toddler, I would wander over to the farm with my black Labrador dog Barney (full name: Barnacle Bill the sailor). I had learned how to chop off the heads of the chickens and pluck and dress them ready for cooking, and how to feed the ducks, chickens, and pigs. I especially liked accidentally letting go of a chicken or two after their heads had been cut off, then chasing after them as they flapped around the yard squawking help, help, help. It intrigued and amused me that the chooks only clucked when they were alive, but spoke English after they had died. I could cut the Lucerne crop with a scythe, and operate the machine that chopped the Lucerne up. "And we get to throw wheat at the chooks" I had excitedly told mum after a very early visit to the farm feeding the chooks.

From the top of the fence, it was easy to step over onto the roof of the old Dairy, from there we jumped down into the long grass on the other side. The track which led to the pig-pens started there alongside the green algae-choked dam where the duck pond drained. Bill was feeding the pigs he was happy to see us and welcomed us with a big smile. We all joined in helping Bill half fill the rubbish bins in which we carried the hot cooked kitchen scraps to each pen. The pigs squealed as they got wind of their breakfast approaching, then there was silence with the only sound the slop slop slop as they gulped down their food.

Now who does that remind me off having their breakfast? I said, looking straight at Joe. You, I think, your mum always says you eat like a pig Joe shot back.

After we had finished with the pigs, I told Bill we were going to check the dump out. He told us that there was quite a bit of new stuff that had been dumped there in the last week. The dump was just behind the pig pens where the hill fell away quite steeply. They could see straight away the fibro sheets that had come from a demolished building. None of the sheets had survived intact, but that was ideal for us as they were easier to carry. Joe had spotted something halfway down the dump and was gingerly clambering down towards his prize.

What have you found Joe? I yelled out to him.

It looks like a crystal wireless set Joe yelled back up to me

I forgot about Joe as I had spotted some instant cash, copper plumbing pipes, and made my way over to them, being careful not to start an avalanche. I carefully pulled out all the pipes and fittings and tossed them down to Llew.

Mister Harrold will give us some decent cash for these, we might get enough to buy some meat pies, Llew said, as he felt the weight of the copper in his hands.

They stacked the broken pieces of fibro in the stand of pine trees that ran in a double row for about a hundred metres, covering them in pine needles to hide them from any other kids that might come snooping around the dump. We then marched off with our treasure, waving and yelling our goodbyes to Bill, who was now feeding the ducks.

The Harrold’s lived next door to us on the opposite side to the Hicks their family consisted of Mister and Mrs Harrold, oldest son Frank, daughter Dawn, and another son Glen who was the same age as Joe. Mister Harrold had taken me under his wing a bit after my Dad had died from TB when I was very young. My Dad had caught TB when he had served in the RAN during World War Two. The Harrold’s had a shack on the Coorong near the mouth of the Murray River. They had invited me to join them there on many occasions. I was Five when Dad died. I had been taught by Mister Harrold how to shoot, catch rabbits, fish, and shoot ducks during the season. Mister Harrold was part Aboriginal, so was very attached to the land and very skilled.

Mister Harrold also collected scrap metal for his Christmas fund. When he had a full load for his trailer, he took it down to one of the scrap metal merchants in Adelaide. He also had told me he would buy any scrap from me that I found. He checked out our copper and offered us six shillings for it. We were very happy with this price and accepted straight away

Let’s get some pies, Joe said as it was nearly lunchtime.

"Some German Spies eh," Mister Harrold said chuckling, using rhyming slang.

"Not German spies anymore Mister Harrold, nowadays meat pies are Russian Spies," I corrected him, with a big grin on my face.

I yelled out across the fence to mum, who was in our garden that I wouldn’t be home for lunch.

You’ll be sorry, you are going to miss out on last nights leftovers, Mum called back, displaying her dry sense of humour.

We collected our bikes from home and set off around the corner and turned right onto Gloucester Avenue. As we rode up the slight rise, we looked over towards the Church of England Retreat House on our right. An involuntary shiver ran down my spine at the glimpses of the brooding two-storey building through the heavily wooded garden. This garden is where we had found the perfect arrows for our homemade longbows. They were the stalks of a large flower which when died off produced quite a strong arrow as the two-foot-long stems turned from green to brown. We then shoved a two-inch flat-headed fibro nail down the business end to provide a suitable weight for the arrow to travel through the air truly.

When are we going to collect some more arrows? I yelled out to Joe.

Later, I’m famished, Joe replied.

The Retreat house was a mysterious brooding place to us boys, mainly because we were chased out of the grounds many times by the men in black who lived there. We pedalled faster and soon left the Retreat House behind us, my mood improved when I saw The Triangle up ahead. We were soon screeching around the Butchers Shop corner, and the adjacent Redburgh’s 4 Square Store, both were closed. Across the main Belair Road was a couple of other shops on the next corner, including Bill the Barber, who was a "White Russian" and Frith’s Deli. Which was the only shop open on Saturday?

We asked Mister Frith for three of the Glover Gibbs meat pies with sauce, and a large bottle of Hall’s Fruita soft drink. Mr Frith let us apply the sauce ourselves from his plastic squeezy thingy. Llew suggested we eat the pies on top of the big hedge. We walked our bikes back over to the Butchers shop and stared up at the big hedge on the other side of the road. We left our bikes down the bottom and pushed our way into the centre of the hedge and easily climbed up the twenty-five feet to the top. We spread out on some of the stronger branches and demolished the pies, washing them down with the Fruita soft drink. We were content with the world and chattered away happily now that our stomachs were full, but maybe we were making too much noise!

"Are you bloody kids up in my hedge again, if I catch you I’ll give you such a bloody good kicking up the Khyber you won’t be able to sit down for a week!" An angry voice bellowed from the house side of the hedge. We reacted instantaneously and fled down the outside of the hedge, grabbing handfuls of pine needles to slow our descents a tad. We were on our bikes and pedalling furiously down Gloucester Avenue as the fuming hedge owner appeared out of his gate waving a garden rake menacingly.

We went straight down to the Fort when we got home, and, after checking no one was around Lew dug up our battered old Arnott’s biscuit tin, and placed the left-over scrap metal money in it and reburied the tin. Joe