The walk gives him plenty of time to have a couple of smokes and savor the unrelieved nightmarishness of the New Guinea jungle, compared to which Guadalcanal, which he thought was the worst place on earth, seems like a dewy meadow strewn with bunnies and butterflies. Nothing is more satisfying than to consider that the Nips and the United States Army spent a couple of years beating the crap out of each other here. Pity the Aussies had to get mixed up in it, though.