All I can say is ‘ol kambang, kavavarr, gorrgorr lip na mahn! Midnight tudak Buin, miksim olgeta wantaim na tru tru ol wokabaut pukpuk ya’, words reprinted from between pages 77 and 79 of that work.

So let me offer a rerun of that segment here.

“Yeah, that is what we are trying to tell these merc [mercenary] mongis and they will not listen to us.  These BRA rebels can fool the best of us over there on the island.  We’ll sure talk more on that. But what made our wantok Buin and his friend go the extra?”

“Heh hhe, apparently the sheila sent a text saying either he comes over now or she was taking the next train up to the bush.  Some sheila that was, and the Buin Tupakas had no patience too.”

“Forget the lesson outcomes. The enemies were to be demobilised so these two men took it upon themselves to get at the nerve of the exercise.  Mangi Tupakas Buin ya materialised out of the dark night as the enemy commanding officer was about to hit the bed.

“The next day, the ADF soldiers who were the enemy in the exercise, found their commanding officer out of action. The poor guy was tied up and trussed under his own bed.

“The Kumul force had overrun the enemy camp before the ‘enemy’ ADF soldiers realised their commanding officer was MIA. The CO was found immobilised in his own tent. 

“It was only then that the Aussies understood there had been an intrusion into their camp in the night.  An inquiry confirmed enemy infiltration by use of dubious and unscientifically improbable means.

“They had simply walked into camp despite the elaborate technology and perimeter sentry guards used by the Australian army.”

“What happened to the two men?”

“They ended up being locked up – not for taking the bold initiative, but because their reason was not the best military reason.  So they did not get to see the sheila – only cement walls of the haus kalabus at Cairns Army Barracks for two weeks.

“The Kumul forces were grateful, though, to spend a week partying and drinking free Aussie booze. 

“Although their Australian counterparts enjoyed the company, they wondered if the Kumul guys had actually used black magic, because they were sure their sentry posts had the most up-to-date technical gadgetry.

“These gizmos could have seen the two, even in the dark.  They wonder how it could not, when it could read all movement, even a jumping frog in the middle of the night.”

“Did the two men reveal how they got to the command tent?”

“Oh, they said they just walked up to the tent unchallenged.  They did the crocodile walk, past a couple of sentry soldiers.

“At one point, a group of men approached their walk and they had to climb a mango tree infested by the fiercest Kurakum ants, but their progress was unhindered.

“They carried no guns, just some gorrgorr leaves, kavavarr ginger tubers and a kambang bottle.  The other pukpuk soldier had grown up with the Tumbuans and knew some of the arts of the Tumbuan hocus pocus for turning an enemy person’s head the other way.  

“He called on this hocus pocus by chewing kavavarr ginger tubers with lime kambang and then spat it out like small volcano eruptions as they did their camp crawl. 

“Mangi Tupakas Buka Buin needed no mumbo jumbo.  He was as black as the blackest night and aided by some precision Tumbuan hocus pocus and puripuri and the two men, as gay as could be, infiltrated the enemy command post.

“The Aussies had no idea how they did it and they offered no conjecture as to why the Australian army gizmos did not register an infringement.  Their exploits are now lore in some sectors of the ADF.’

“Some sections of the Australian army were so scared that our men could still practice things from the nether world in and during a modern army conflict.  They put a clamp on the story and did not publicise it.  Instead they cancelled the exercise.”

….......

For the sanity of some people and to keep the lid on some of our people’s practises, I refrain to explain ‘crocodile walk’.  It is for the reader to decide what would best be a ‘crocodile walk.’ But you can read my book....

‘Operesin Kisim Bek Lombo: The one operation that the Sandline Operatives did not make’ by Baka Bina. 267 pages. Paperback $20.42 available here from Amazon

Synopsis

A Sandline International operation under the name Executive Outcomes has been engaged by the government of Papua New Guinea to assist in a military operation to stem the rebellion on the island of Bougainville.

Executive Outcomes sources manpower from the African continent to assist the struggling PNG Defence Force. The Africans are ex-soldiers who have sold their military skills to Executive Outcome as mercenaries.

But the company also has another agenda. It wants mining concessions to the Bougainville copper mine that has been abandoned since civil war broke out.

The PNGDF has issues with the engagement of Executive Outcomes as it contradicts and subverts their constitutional role. However, the defence force men are limited in what they can do.

Officers sympathetic to the PNGDF and loyal to their country try to commandeer the hierarchy of the defence force, calling upon traditional mystical beliefs and traditions including 'time travelling' to hijack Executive Outcomes operations.

They freely use long abandoned supernatural powers practiced by their ancestors. They call up and even comically use concepts not thought possible. This is one item they can use to their advantage.

The Papua New Guinea soldiers call up their ancestral mystics –a range of Sangumas, Dukduks, E'hahos, Kukurais, Songans, Maimais, Ghewos, the occasional walking Sepik Carving and if that is not enough the poor Samarai 'Time Traveller' to fly in the favourite buai nut and perhaps to a meal unlike any other, a possible feast of manbones.