World Battlefronts: A Time for Silence

Curious soldiers clustered on a New Guinea riverbank. As the late afternoon sunlight slanted through coconut-palm fronds, a raft drifted around the river bend. Small frizzled-haired Papuan natives guided it slowly to shore. Heedless of cries of "Don't bother, we'll get it for you" from the soldiers on the bank, four Australian soldiers aboard the raft slowly gathered up possessions that only a soldier can truly treasure—firearms, rain capes, a few battered odds & ends. As they turned their sunken eyes shoreward, the shouting and chatter of the spectators ceased. The crowd...