by Judy Nunn
‘When my son and his wife were killed,’ she’d said in her brittle matter-of-fact way, ‘Henrietta was immensely strong. I was not well myself, I believe it was grief which brought about my physical decline.’ She spoke of grief as if it was the croup, and Terence could imagine little affecting the old lady emotionally. ‘She came to live with me in order to look after me, and she devoted herself to her Red Cross work. She was always a good driver. She drives trucks, you know.’
‘I know.’
‘Yes,’ the old woman nodded proudly. ‘She does the work of a man. Devoted to it too, quite devoted.’
‘Well I wasn’t any good at knitting socks and vests, Grandma,’ Henrietta said lightly, wishing her grandmother would stop speaking about her as if she wasn’t there.
‘A very strong girl, my Henrietta. Very strong. Very capable.’
Terence wondered exactly what sort of message the old woman was sending him. He was trying to read her, just as she was trying to read him. On the one hand she seemed to be telling him that she needed Henrietta to look after her, and on the other she was extolling Henrietta’s virtues as one did a brood mare.
‘I shall be leaving for Australia within the month, Mrs Southern,’ he said as he bade his farewell.
‘Shall you be paying a visit before your departure?’ she asked. The beady brown eyes were asking ‘a visit not only to Henrietta, but to me’. The old woman knew that he wanted to marry her grand daughter, Terence could tell. Was she for him or against him? She was giving away nothing.
‘I most certainly shall.’
‘I look forward to that, Terence. Goodbye.’ She shook his hand.
Henrietta took him downstairs and saw him to the front door.
Winifred returned her attention to the little park out the window. Well, his intentions were honourable, that was obvious, he wanted to marry the girl and take her to Australia. Young people moved so quickly these days, but then there was a war on, they had to.
There was a little girl in the park, playing with a dog. A puppy really, half grown. Both young and exuberant. Winifred remembered the puppy she’d had as a small girl, so boisterous it would bowl her over. Life went on, didn’t it. God, but she was old. So very, very old. She snapped her mind back to the present.
The lieutenant came from a wealthy family it appeared. Cattle people, a property with the rather ridiculous name of ‘Bullalalla’. Four thousand square miles no less. She’d found it impossible to believe at first.
‘Don’t you mean acres?’ she’d asked.
‘Nope, square miles, that’s the way we measure it where I come from.’
‘But that’s half the size of Wales.’
‘Is it?’ He hadn’t appeared particularly interested in British comparisons. ‘In the more arid areas there are stations ten, twelve thousand square miles and more,’ he’d said, ‘but Bullalalla’s good country, the homestead’s only sixty miles from Darwin, along the Finniss River, you can double your stock on land like ours.’
Winifred had been aware of the sales pitch, but he hadn’t been lying, she was sure of that. Yes, she thought as she looked out the window, Henrietta would be well looked after. And she’d be in Australia. A foreign country, so very far away. But Australia was safe, the Lieutenant had assured her. The cattle station was isolated. Far from the bombs. And that was what Winifred wanted more than anything, the safety of her grand daughter. The death of her only son had devastated her, she must protect his daughter at all costs. When Terence proposed marriage, as it was obvious he was going to, Henrietta would agonise over leaving her grandmother. Well, Winifred would convince her that she must. The next-door neighbour would do her shopping, she would say, and if necesssary she could employ a helper. That’s what old people with means did, she would say, and she was not without means. She would make it easy for the girl, who was so clearly in love.
Winifred would miss Henrietta sorely, she knew it. But perhaps the absence of her grand daughter would help her to die. Since the death of her son she had longed to die, Henrietta had been the only thing keeping her going. Perhaps the loneliness would help.
She only hoped the lieutenant would be kind to Henrietta. There was a hardness behind his eyes. Perhaps it was because he was an Australian, from ‘the outback’ no less. She couldn’t really picture ‘the outback’, but he’d spoken of it with such pride and passion. And he was a fighter pilot, they certainly needed to be hard, perhaps that was it. Winifred fought back any misgivings she might have had. Terence Galloway was the best thing that could have happened to Henrietta, she told herself. Her grand daughter would go to a safe life in a safe haven with a man who loved her.
‘Did you like him, Grandma?’ Henrietta was back. ‘Did you really like him?’
He obviously hadn’t proposed, Winifred thought, or Henrietta would have burst through the door announcing it. But her grand daughter’s cheeks were glowing and her eyes were shining, and any tiny doubt Winifred might have had disappeared in an instant.
‘Very much,’ she said. ‘And you’re right, he’s very handsome.’
Henrietta was the only one of the three of them, Winifred thought, who had no idea of what had gone on that afternoon.
If it were not for the company of Commandeur Pelsaert, life aboard the Batavia would be intolerable, Lucretia often thought.
No, not intolerable, she now decided, as she stood upon the deck looking out over the sullen ocean, the huge sails flapping idly overhead, the ship rocking gently, silent, becalmed on this strange, still sea. No, she would tolerate any hardship life could deliver so long as each day brought her closer to her beloved Boudewijn. But, amongst the deprivation and rigours of shipboard life, and the close proximity of rough and vulgar men, Lucretia blessed the companionship of Commandeur Francisco Pelsaert, a man of breeding and sensitivity.
The convoy had set sail with all the pomp and ceremony Amsterdam had to offer and, as they’d swept through the Marsdiep, the principal channel connecting the Zuider Zee to the North Sea, they had indeed presented an awesome sight. The Batavia, the flagship leading the convoy of eight, the grandest of them all. The most magnificent vessel ever to set sail for the East Indies. Built of seasoned oak, she was 140 feet in length, forty feet in the beam and forty feet from deck to keel. She carried 600 tons of cargo and, within the cramped space below decks, she housed no less than 300 soldiers, passengers and crew.
But it was her decoration which made her unique. Her hull was painted bright green and gold, and around her massive stern were carved figures to ward off the evil spirits which might cause her harm. Likewise, all about the vessel were ornately carved heads and life-sized figures, watching over the ship from every vantage point, guarding her safety, and proclaiming the superstitions of the Dutch seamen. But most impressive of the carved symbols was the figurehead. Rearing from the prow of the ship, below the massive bowsprit was the Lion-of-Holland. Three times the size of a man, bright red with a golden mane, the Lion-of-Holland snarled its rage, defying the domination of the elements.
And above the Batavia’s gaudy magnificence there towered the three masts whose virgin white sails, as yet unblemished by the salt of the sea, embraced the wind, forever speeding them on towards the East Indies.
For all of her splendour, however, and despite the fact that she was by comparison to others a luxurious ship, any sense of comfort aboard the Batavia was short lived.
The convoy had barely entered the North Sea when they were beset by a violent storm, most of the ships losing sight of each other. As the Batavia pitched and rolled and reared and dived, the many inexperienced travellers aboard her were convinced they must drown. When the Lion-of-Holland disappeared into the waves and the bowsprit itself speared the sea, they felt the vessel must surely plunge to the bottom of the ocean never to return. But she reared back up again, like a wild horse refusing to be broken.
Like the others, Lucretia had thought she might die from the sea sickness, but she had recovered and found her sea legs f
ar better than most. Now she weathered the storms like a seasoned sailor. She was better housed than most too, and she knew it. The sailors slept and ate huddled amongst the twenty-eight cannons. The soldiers, some seasoned regulars, some military cadets, others conscriptees bound for national service in the colonies, were restricted to the closely confined quarters above, where there was not space enough for a man to stand upright. There they crouched for eleven hours at a stretch before being allowed their brief respite on deck. And the working-class passengers found space where they could. Only the commanding officers had cabins of their own.
In consideration of her social standing, Lucretia had been allocated an alcove which she shared with her maid, Zwaantie, and she ate with the officers in the dining room at the stern of the ship. The one grand room aboard the Batavia, the dining room converted to sleeping quarters at night, but during the early evening, at mealtime, the select dozen or so were seated in a civilised fashion around the large oak table.
Not that the company was civilised, Lucretia thought. With the exception of Francisco Pelsaert, she loathed the men with whom she was forced to socialise. Particularly the ship’s captain, Adriaen Jacobsz. For all of his renown as an excellent sailor, and for all of his personal pretensions to intellectual superiority, Lucretia had decided upon their first meeting that the man was a pig.
Jacobsz, although a handsome man with an imposing figure, was an unashamed hedonist who ate and drank with gusto and boasted openly of his sexual exploits. Convinced of his own fatal charm, he had very early on set about to impress the aristocratic and beautiful young woman. But the harder he tried, the more Lucretia retreated behind her haughty façade, openly displaying her preference for Pelsaert’s company, which further annoyed Jacobsz. As Commandeur of the fleet, Pelsaert was his superior in rank, Jacobsz accepted that, but it was quite evident both Lucretia and Pelsaert also considered him of inferior social standing, which was an insult. He was after all the captain of the vessel. Jacobsz turned his attentions instead to Lucretia’s maid, Zwaantie Hendrix, and there found instant gratification.
It irked Lucretia that her maid was conducting an affair with the detestable Jacobsz, and she grew to despise Zwaantie. She knew too that the loathsome pair were whispering obscenities about her and Pelsaert. Nothing was secret aboard the Batavia. The Commandeur had recently taken ill and Lucretia regularly visited him in his cabin, to take him a bowl of soup which the cook had brewed or to bathe his fevered brow. Some troublemakers amongst the men considered the Commandeur a malingerer. ‘Lying back in his cabin enjoying the trip, who does he think he is,’ they said. And the lascivious rumours spread by Jacobsz and Zwaantie Hendrix did not help matters. Lucretia van den Mylen was Pelsaert’s whore, they whispered, and others listened.
Well, let them talk, Lucretia thought now as she gazed up at the luffing sails, savouring the moment of calm. And let them listen. She would rise above them all, she did not need them. She had the locket to keep her company, to guard her against all evil. The symbol of Boudewijn and the love they shared nestled against her breast.
At night, Lucretia would take the locket from its concealment beneath her clothing and she would caress its face. She could not see it in the darkness, but she could feel the ridges of the mountain, and the thrust of the rays from the diamond sun. Even as she cursed Adriaen Jacobsz and his like—and there were others on board, she knew it, who lusted for her, who considered her vain and arrogant, and who would wish to degrade her—even as she cursed them all, she clung to the knowledge that each day brought her closer to Boudewijn.
The bombers were clearly visible in the early dawn light. Twenty-four of them in all, and twenty-five fighters.
But there could have been hundreds, Bernie thought, you could never tell from down here, the sky seemed full of them. Enemy planes wherever you looked, relentless and menacing. They’d been bombing the Top End military and air force installations for a whole bloody year now.
‘Fuse 2-0!’ The order rang out from the command post.
‘Fuse 2-0 set!’ Young Bernie Spencer, gunner with the 31st Heavy Ack-Ack, yelled in response.
‘Fire!’
Crouched beside his 3.7 heavy mobile ack-ack, dug into the ground and wedged with sandbags, Bernie and the other three gunners in the battery fired at the bombers overhead.
‘Enemy bombers three o’clock high.’ The Wing Commander’s voice sounded composed, almost detached, as he ordered his squadron to climb, preparatory to attack. But Terence Galloway, Spitfire pilot of No. 1 Fighter Wing, felt anything other than composed and detached. Adrenalin was pumping through his body, he could see the flak of their own anti-aircraft guns, already the sky was becoming a furnace, and the dogfights hadn’t even started!
Twenty thousand feet. Now! The order sounded and Terence wheeled his aircraft to dive on the bombers below.
The Jap aircraft seemed to come from nowhere. Four Zeros. They must have been taking cover in the bank of cumulus cloud to the east, Terence thought. Clever bastards.
The enemy fighters dropped their belly tanks and dived. Terence banked sharply, turned and, as two of the Zeros crossed the nose of his aircraft, fired a long burst through each. One kept diving, an angry streak of orange flame streaming from its fuselage. It was out of commission and heading for home, Terence doubted it would make it. The other Zero turned, banked, and the dogfight was on.
Terence was aware that all about him the air was an inferno of machine-gun and cannon fire and, amongst the haze of smoke, he kept a lookout peripherally for any other enemy fighter attack, but his main focus was concentrated on the Zero he’d chosen. Or the Zero who had chosen him, he thought as they both wheeled and climbed and turned and fired, then dived and rose again to resume the deadly fight. Once, they were so close he could see the Jap’s face. A good pilot, Terence thought. But not good enough. One of us will die, my friend, and it won’t be me!
Terence was revelling in the thrill of the chase. This was what he’d been missing, he thought. This was what he lived for, what he was prepared to die for. But not today. Oh no, not today!
The Jap had missed his opportunity. For an instant Terence had thought it was he himself who had lost. He heard a series of thuds and felt his plane jump. He’d been hit. But not badly. And the Jap had lost concentration. Perhaps thinking he’d won, he’d been slow on his turn. There he was! In Terence’s sights long enough for him to rake the whole fuselage from tail to nose. He watched as the orange flame streaked from the tail of the Zero. Then he watched as the aircraft plunged to the ground.
‘Cease fire!’
Young Bernie Spencer flopped back against the sandbags, sweat pouring from his brow. The sun was barely up in the sky and yet it was stinking hot. But then he wasn’t in Adelaide now, this was the Northern Territory and it was early March, what did he expect? His rotting shirt clung wet to his back and his Bombay bloomer shorts were grimy with the red outback soil.
After four months at the Bullalalla station gunsite, Bernie was accustomed to the discomfort, but it was the boredom which grated with him and the other blokes. Not this morning, though. This morning had been a beauty. This morning they hadn’t sat around taking potshots at a Jap reconnaissance plane travelling too high to be bothered by the ack-ack. They’d had a say in things this morning.
One of the lads, another gunner, stood up and cheered, waving a fist to the sky and the retreating aircraft. Then the whole of the battery stood and applauded, over twenty in all, and nineteen-year-old Bernie Spencer joined in. Well, they wouldn’t be whingeing about the Top End being the arsehole of the world today, he thought. No bellyaching today about the mossies and the ants and the heat and the flies, and why they hadn’t been sent overseas to fight the war. Today they’d served a purpose. Two bombers, on fire, had headed out to sea, the rest had turned tail and fled. The Jap raid had been a dismal failure. Between the Spits above and the ack-ack below they’d sent the yellow peril home with their tails between their legs. ‘Go home, you ba
stards!’ Bernie yelled along with the others.
Terence wanted more. But the fight was over. The bombers had departed. He followed them long enough to see one still burning in the sea just outside the port of Darwin, along with six enemy fighter aircraft. Then he set his sights for home.
Bernie shielded his eyes. ‘Here he comes!’ he shouted to his mates as he watched the Spit emerge from the haze of battle and fly towards the homestead over the ridge ten miles south of the gunsite. All the men stood and cheered, waving their hats. They’d seen the pilot do it before. Often. For no apparent reason he’d buzz the homestead. They didn’t know why he did it, what his connection with Bullalalla cattle station was, but they admired his antics, he’d helped fill in the tedium of many a long day.
‘Here he comes!’ Unwittingly echoing young Bernie Spencer, Jock Galloway’s voice boomed through the homestead as he opened the front door from the verandah and yelled with all the force his lungs could muster. ‘Everybody outside! At the double! He’s coming!’
This was the moment old Jock had been waiting for. He’d stood on the verandah for the past hour, mesmerised by the smouldering sky and the cacophony of artillery fire. He knew that, inside the house, Margaret, Henrietta and Charlotte would be glancing nervously from the windows wishing it were over, and Nellie and Pearl would be whimpering with terror, as Aborigines always did at the sound of machine gunfire. But they should have been standing here with him, outside on the verandah, glorying in the spectacle of it all.
Every military fibre in Jock’s body responded to the sight and the sound and the smell of warfare. But he was no mere spectator, he was a contributor to the entire exercise, the armed forces were on his property. A battery to the north, and to the south an airstrip and RAAF base. Following the bombing of Darwin in February the previous year, and the consequent destruction of any RAAF strength in the north-western area, the air force had built their Top End airfields with one simple strategy in mind—dispersal. And Jock Galloway had been only too eager to offer to the military and the RAAF any area they chose of the four thousand square miles of Bullalalla cattle station. As a veteran of the Great War, he was proud to be of assistance; he’d declared, it was his bounden duty to King and Country.
