THE PATROL POST IN THE SKY
By Chips Mackellar (Postscript to Mal Lang's funeral - published Una Voce June 2004 pp 24-25

It was a bitter-sweet day when we gathered together to say goodbye to Mal Lang, who died one week before his 73rd birthday.

I had last seen Mal, while I was on my way home from the Association’s annual Christmas luncheon at the Mandarin Club on 7 December 2003. I went to see Mal with Bill McGrath. Along with 30 other Cadets, the three of us had joined the PNG Service together, on the same day in 1953. And there we were together again, 50 years later. Bill and I were still weathering the years, although somewhat shopworn from the ravages of time, but Mal lay there in a semi trance, stricken with cancer of the brain. Bill and I thought he wouldn’t last till Christmas, but he hung on doggedly, until he died quietly in his sleep during the night of 16 March 2004.

Mal’s closest friends during his last few years were Harry Redmond and John Stuntz, and they would meet every Sunday for drinks at the Manly Sailing Club. I used to join them now and again, and so did some other out of town kiaps on various occasions. During his last days, Mal had asked for a simple funeral, and a gathering of Kiaps to send him on his way from this, his favourite watering hole.

The funeral on 19th March was attended by Kiaps Harry West, Bill Brown, Ross Johnston, Neil Grant and Christine, John Blythe, Harry Redmond and myself, and honorary kiap Bert Speer. Mal’s son Scott was there together with Scott’s wife Natalia, and Mal’s first wife Kay, and Mal’s long time partner Liz Ayres. It was a simple ceremony as Mal had wished, and the eulogy was delivered by Harry Redmond.

A gathering of kiaps at the Sailing Club followed on Saturday 27th March. Kiaps whom we had not seen for years attended, including Dave Marsh, and Frank Haviland whom I had not seen since 1972, and Basher O’Connell, John Balderson, John Stuntz, Stuart Armstrong, Bill and Pam Brown, and John Blythe.

And, as Mal had wished, we talked as we always did, of times gone by when we were all young, in Papua New Guinea. Most of us had not been there for more than 20 years, and we marvelled at the strange bond which still unites us all, and which still urges us to gather at times like these. For example, what makes us gather at the Mandarin Club every year? It is certainly not the food. Why do we go to reunions at Buderim? It is certainly not the travelling. Why do we have a kiap’s website, and why do we read Una Voce? Why do we keep in contact with each other, and why is it that those we met half a century ago in that far off land and in a life which no longer exists, are to this day, still our closest friends?

It is an esprit de corps, a singleness of soul, and a kindredness of spirit, which shackles us together because of our shared experience of service in Papua New Guinea. And even after half a century of change and aging, it is a unique bond which has never been broken.

And it was because of this bond that we saw no need for speeches, no farewell messages, and no more eulogies. We just sat and yarned and told tall stories, and laughed and joked as we always did, just as though Mal was still there with us. And in a sense, he always will be, still bonded to us by that singleness of soul, and it was in this spirit of companionship that we sent Mal off on his last patrol, to join all those other kiaps who have preceded us on that long, long journey which all of us will eventually take, to that big Patrol Post in the Sky.

There’s a Patrol Post up there in the sky, above the sea near Lae,
Nor’nor west of Samarai, south east of Hansa Bay.
It has palm trees waving in the moon, where mosquitos sting at night,
And canoes out on the blue lagoon, awaiting fish to bite.
It smells of kunai in the rain, and smoke from the valley floor,
And you’ll hear the pounding surf again, on the reef beyond the shore.

It’s the place where all the Kiaps go, when their time on earth is through,
And they talk with all the friends they know, of the things they used to do.
They talk about the times now past, in places far away,
And of all the memories that last, of Independence Day.
They talk of sights and sounds and smells, and people they all knew,
Of bugle calls and mission bells, of garamut and kundu.

Of times gone by, in Samarai, and windswept coral cays,
Of tribal fights, and freezing nights, and misty Highland days,
Of black palm floors, and tidal bores, and life on the River Fly,
The Kavieng Club, and the Bottom Pub, with a thirst you couldn’t buy,
Of carrier loads, and Highland roads, at the time when we were there,
Of bailer pearls, and Trobriand girls, with flowers in their hair.

And when we say goodbye to you, don’t mourn us when we go.
The Big D.C. will call us too, and this of course we know.
The last Patrol will take us all, along that well worn track,
But the difference for this final call, is that we won’t be coming back.
So our passing should not cause you pain, it’s not sad for us to die,
For we will all soon meet again, in that Patrol Post in the Sky.