He also hears about how one exploded and killed many village people. Another hit the ground in heavy bush. And there is a third, which still lies in rough stony country.

The villagers won’t go near this third object, and speak of it with fear. The patrol officer understands it’s a bomb and reports its location to headquarters in Port Moresby.

As the years go by, other patrol officers also report the bomb.

World War II left many tons of live ammunition in the coastal areas of Papua New Guinea. Australian army officers were kept busy exploding it safely.

But, in the highlands, this was rare, almost unheard of.

The Mount Elimbari bomb sat there alone, ignored by the authorities, a low priority.

1953

On my first patrol as a cadet patrol officer I accompanied Tony Keogh, a senior patrol officer, trekking from village to village through the area below Mount Elimbari. Knowing of the bomb, we wanted to hear the story from the people affected. One was an old man.

“One day we were frightened by a noise, bigger than thunder,” he said. “The next day we found a big, heavy thing, round like a tree-trunk and as long as a man.

“We thought the big noise must have been the gods telling us they were sending this thing. It seemed to be made of the same strong stone as the white man’s axes. We thought the gods must be sending us many good things.

“We tried to open the object but couldn’t make a mark on it. Our medicine men worked strong sorcery to make it open. Nothing happened.

“So we tied bush rope around it and all the young men dragged it into the middle of our village. There was much talk, everyone had ideas of how to open it. Mostly they said, ‘We use fire to harden our spears, we use fire to help us hunt, we use fire to crack stones. Fire is our friend. We must use fire to open this god-given gift’.

“We built a big fire all around it and kept it going all night and the next day and the next night. We made special dances around it and made up songs for it. It was hard work gathering enough firewood.

“When the sun rose on the third day, I went into the bush to get more firewood. Suddenly, a noise bigger than the first noise, deafened me and a very strong wind threw me to the ground. I think I passed out.

“Then I realised there was complete silence. I was shaking with fear. After a while, I picked up the firewood I had gathered and walked towards the village. There were no leaves on the trees. Some branches had broken off. Then I came to a man lying on the ground. There was blood all over him. He was dead.

“I saw more bodies, some with parts missing, all dead. I knew these people. All the village houses were not there any more. It was very quiet.

“Then I went crazy. I ran along the track towards the next village, screaming all the time. I met some men coming to see what the big noise was. I don’t remember anything after that.”

This man was one of only a few people who survived the bomb’s explosion. The bad news spread quickly and from that day no one would go anywhere near the third bomb.

Tony, like several of his predecessors, reported the presence of the third bomb to headquarters. We thought no more about it.

1954

I was camped at 8,000 feet, the highest point on Daulo Pass where the road crossed a mountain divide, supervising the maintenance and improvement of this narrow, winding vehicle track.

A LandRover pulled up one morning and out jumped a man in Australian Army uniform. “Bruce Herron,” he said and handed me a note which read: ‘Take this bomb disposal man to the unexploded bomb’ and it was signed ID – Ian Downs, my District Commissioner.

Bruce Herron had only three days for this job. I gathered some basic patrol gear, threw it into his LandRover and we set off for Chuave, a patrol post near the base of Mount Elimbari. The resident patrol officer was on patrol elsewhere, so we slept the night in his house.

We needed a small line of carriers, but my attempts at recruiting them locally were met with absolute refusal.

“We won’t go anywhere near that bomb. It is very dangerous. The whole area is ples tambu, forbidden.”

Eventually I persuaded two teachers, a medical orderly and a mission worker, all from coastal areas and who had lived through wartime bombings.

The climb up the steep track from Chuave at 5,000 feet to a Mission station at 7,000 feet tested our legs and lungs.

The American missionary, Bill, knew where the bomb was and joined our small party as a guide. There was no track. We had to break bush and climb over the tumbled boulders of Mount Elimbari’s scree slope.

The bomb lay in a steep gully half buried under a huge boulder the size of two mini-buses.

“Strike a light!” said Bruce, “that’s a 1,500 pounder. From the descriptions I read, I expected a 500.”

He told the carriers to walk back the way we’d come for at least ten minutes and wait for us there. Then he noted the time on his watch and led Bill and me over a steep ridge until he found a safe place some distance down the slope.

“That took us three minutes. This is where we go to wait for the explosion.”

We walked back to the bomb and watched in silence while he moulded plastic explosive to the thinnest part of the bomb casing, measured out nine minutes of fuse, crimped the detonator to one end, lit a cigarette until it glowed red and touched it to the free end of the fuse which started to splutter with menace.

“Okay, let’s go”, Bruce said, and we went – so fast it took us only two minutes to get to our safe place.

“Lie on your backs, snuggle into the sloping ground and look up. You’re looking for falling rocks and broken branches. After it explodes stay there and keep looking.”

Bruce watched his watch. “Half a minute.”

How slowly the time went.

“Any time now.”

He had barely spoken when the ground smashed into my back and jolted my hat off my head. A deafening percussion assaulted my body with a roar of an intensity beyond my experience. My body shook and echoes and re-echoes bounced from near and far. Falling boulders thumped back to earth and several trees crashed down.

Missionary Bill panicked, leapt up and scrambled down the hill. “Stop. Stop. Get down,” yelled Bruce. No effect.

“Stop, you stupid bugger.” Bruce poured out a colourful steam of Army invective and curdling blasphemy until Bill stopped and curled himself into a ball, hugging his legs.

As the noise eased and the echoes died away, the rain of leaves and twigs fluttering down continued and a half-severed branch fell to earth.

It must have been some minutes before an eerie total silence enveloped us. Bruce kept us there another five minutes before leading us cautiously back to an unrecognisable scene. Smashed, leafless trees; the boulders now gone; a pungent smell of crushed and bleeding trees, shattered rock and burnt explosive.

I felt I had an inkling of what it must be like to be in a wartime bombardment.

Walking back towards the Mission, we came upon several village people who’d undoubtedly heard the explosion and knew its lethal power.

They stared at us, wide-eyed, turned and ran into the bush with cries of fear. I couldn’t understand this strange behaviour so made enquiries later in the day.

I was told they had assumed we’d died in the explosion, so what they saw must be our ghosts coming to haunt them.