by Judy Nunn
Now, as the Garden Party Committee gathered in the Green Room of the Hotel Darwin, Aggie was pleased to announce that Government House had been most supportive and that the ballroom would be at their disposal should the weather prove inclement.
Everyone clapped, and the Government House representative, a grey birdlike woman who was somebody’s secretary, graciously accepted the applause, but Paul and Foong Lee knew where the true credit lay.
‘We shall demand the ballroom,’ Aggie had said to them in private, refusing to accept the suggestion that the verandahs would surely supply adequate shelter in the event of rain.
The two men now exchanged a smile. As usual Aggie had won.
As it turned out Aggie’s fears about the weather proved groundless. The day of the garden party was clear, sweltering and sticky as was to be expected but, come late afternoon, when guests started arriving a shadow of a breeze promised a cool evening.
Government House stood grandly on its promontory overlooking the harbour, surrounded by its beautifully landscaped lawns and gardens. Miniature rainforests, tropical groves with exotic plant species and arbours of native trees were linked by terraced walks. The grounds on the western side, near Lover’s Walk, had received a direct bomb hit during the first Japanese raid of February ’42 and remained partially destroyed, but the rest of the gardens and the spacious house with its louvred verandahs had survived unscathed throughout the attacks.
The House of Seven Gables, as it was known, presented an oasis in the war-torn town as guests arrived at the carriage-loop and started to mingle.
Terence was proud of Henrietta, she looked magnificent, her chestnut curls piled on top of her head, her yellow sleeveless cotton dress with the little mauve flowers accentuating the curves of her body. She hadn’t allowed him to buy a new dress, it was far too much trouble, she’d said. And she had dresses in her wardrobe which he’d bought on her arrival that she’d never even worn. But she’d taken a lot of trouble with her hair. She wanted to wear it ‘up’ for a more ‘formal look’, she’d said. It really didn’t want to stay there, however, and Terence thought the threat of its falling made her doubly attractive.
His pride was mingled with a touch of wary aggression as they sauntered through the milling crowd and he sensed men’s admiring glances. He was proud to have a creature like Henrietta on his arm, but let one man overstep the mark! Henrietta was his, and Terence was at the ready.
‘Terry!’ It was Hans van der Baan. Henrietta was momentarily surprised, she’d heard no-one but Jock call Terence ‘Terry’. But as the big Dutchman swooped upon them, with several of his friends in tow, it appeared that Terence was ‘Terry’ to all of his air force mates. They slapped each other on the back and raised glasses of beer, and, one arm around Terence’s shoulder, Hans grabbed a glass from the tray of a passing waiter and thrust it into his friend’s hand.
‘A toast!’ he exclaimed. They all raised their beer glasses and drank to the 457 Spitfire Squadron, then to the 319 Bomb Group’s Squadron, then to Victory, and it was only after that Terence thought to introduce his wife.
In the grip of camaraderie, Terence’s feelings of possessiveness disappeared and Henrietta was quickly ignored as the men reminisced. Not that she minded. She accepted a glass of wine from a waiter and wandered down the terrace to admire the giant banyan tree which stood in the south-eastern corner.
‘You’re Mrs Galloway aren’t you? From Bullalalla?’
Henrietta turned to confront a tall, handsome woman with short dark hair and apparently little sense of occasion—she was wearing trousers.
‘Aggie Marshall,’ Aggie said, and she held out her hand.
‘Henrietta Galloway,’ Henrietta returned the handshake which was as firm as that of a man’s; it rather reminded her of Charlotte.
‘You’ve been here for years and yet I’ve never seen you in Darwin,’ Aggie said. ‘Bullalalla’s only two hours’ drive, you must come in and join us from time to time.’ Whilst Henrietta wondered how Aggie knew so much about her, and whilst she pondered about who the ‘us’ might be, Aggie didn’t draw breath.
‘I do a bit of work for the Country Women’s Association,’ she said, which was putting it mildly. Aggie devoted her every waking hour to fundraising events which she herself orchestrated under the banner of the CWA. ‘And we need all the members we can get. Or rather all the “helpers” we can get, should I say. There’s so much to be done, isn’t there?’ She was about to continue but a voice broke in.
‘She’s lining you up to do something, I can tell. She’s incorrigible, don’t listen to her.’ It was Paul Trewinnard. ‘You’re Mrs Galloway from Bullalalla station, aren’t you? Paul Trewinnard, how do you do.’ And he offered his hand.
How did everyone know about her, Henrietta wondered as she returned his handshake.
‘This is Darwin,’ his grey eyes gleamed a warning, he was aware of her bemusement. ‘Everyone knows everyone in Darwin, and they know of everyone within a hundred mile radius. The grapevine is alive and well, despite the war, and nothing is sacred.’
‘How is your baby?’ Aggie interrupted, ignoring Paul and compounding his theory, ‘he must be three months old now.’
Henrietta was nonplussed, but charmed nonetheless, she couldn’t help but be. Despite the surprising discovery that she’d apparently become hot gossip, the enthusiasm Aggie Marshall displayed was genuine and very engaging. ‘Malcolm,’ she smiled, ‘he’s just over four months actually.’
As the women engaged briefly in baby discussion, Paul Trewinnard started to drift away in search of a waiter, his wine glass was empty. But Aggie wasn’t about to let him off the hook.
‘Paul has agreed to play chauffeur when I go out to the boat which arrives the day after tomorrow, haven’t you Paul?’ She stopped him in his tracks.
‘Glad to help,’ he replied, as he tried unsuccessfully to catch the attention of a waiter who was too far away to notice them.
‘I have trouble getting down to the wharf,’ Aggie explained, ‘so Paul always drives me when a boat comes in.’ Henrietta hadn’t noticed that Aggie was lame, but she nodded politely wondering where the conversation was leading. ‘If you could make yourself available, Henrietta—you don’t mind if I call you Henrietta do you?’ Before Henrietta had time to nod, Aggie continued, ‘I think it would be an excellent idea for you to accompany us. The boys love to see women on their return, and one as pretty as you would be a special treat.’
‘What boys?’
‘She means the POWs,’ Paul explained, waving frantically at the waiter. ‘Aggie goes out to the boats and planes to meet the returned prisoners, they’ve been coming back in droves for several weeks now.’
Aggie Marshall had been working closely with the Australian Women’s Army Service and had made it her job not only to greet the returning men, but to search for news of husbands, fiancees and relatives who had been enquired after through the AWAS.
Henrietta hesitated.
‘I told you she’d try to bulldoze you into something,’ Paul said. ‘Leave Mrs Galloway alone, Aggie, she has a young baby for goodness’ sake.’
‘Henrietta please,’ Henrietta corrected him.
‘Bring Malcolm along, he’d be more than welcome.’ Aggie wasn’t about to give up.
‘Dear God, woman, you’re a bully.’ Paul’s frantic waves had finally caught the waiter’s attention.
‘No, really, I’d love to help,’ Henrietta said, pleased to have been asked. ‘But I’ll have to check with my husband.’
‘Excellent,’ Aggie grinned enthusiastically. ‘Let’s say the foyer of the Hotel Darwin, shall we? Two o’clock, Tuesday afternoon.’
The waiter had arrived. Paul insisted they all top up their glasses, and he proposed a toast. ‘To new acquaintances,’ he said.
The crowd was then called to attention by a spokesman of the official party who had now gathered on the verandah. The Government Administrator, Charles Lydiard Aubrey Abbott, was about to give his
address. Paul and the two women wandered back up the terrace to join the throng and it was only then that Henrietta noticed Aggie’s severe limp. She saw the carpet slipper protruding from the grey slacks and noted the heaviness of Aggie’s gait. Did the woman have a false leg, she wondered.
Following the administrator’s address, there was a brief but boring speech from an army general about ‘the fine job our servicemen have done in the defence of Darwin’.
‘They’ve done a fine job looting the place too,’ Paul muttered to Henrietta. He’d been disgusted at the damage his beloved Hotel Darwin had suffered. The jewel of the southern hemisphere, as she was so often referred to, had survived the carnage inflicted by the Japanese, but she hadn’t escaped the violation of her own protectors. ‘It’s a downright disgrace,’ he added, this time just a little more loudly. The military were not popular amongst the locals.
Foong Lee was then called upon to speak on behalf of the Chinese community. He stood on the verandah, a penguin-like figure, dwarfed by the general and the administrator, and spoke his King’s English with an Aussie twang, and yet his were the words which carried the most dignity and meaning.
He said that although he’d been asked to speak on behalf of the Chinese, he preferred to speak on behalf of all those present who had a love of Darwin. ‘The rest of Australia doesn’t know what we’ve been through,’ he said, ‘and we’ve acquitted ourselves well in a war which nearly destroyed us. We must now acquit ourselves well in peacetime.’ He glanced at the general.
Paul gave a ‘bravo’ under his breath, Foong Lee’s words were a direct dig at the military. Charles Abbott nodded his agreement, he too had no doubt as to where the blame lay for much of Darwin’s destruction.
‘We must rebuild our fine city, and we must do it together,’ Foong Lee said. ‘Our strength lies in our unity. On behalf of my own community and all those who love Darwin, let us work together in raising her from the ashes.’
There was a warm round of applause as he finished speaking and, after a series of photographs taken by the Northern Standard photographer for inclusion in Paul’s forthcoming article, the official business of the afternoon was over and done.
Paul sought out Foong Lee and his family and brought them over to meet Henrietta.
‘How do you do, Mrs Galloway,’ Foong Lee said. ‘My wife, Lin Mei, and my son, Albert.’ He introduced the young man at his side with great pride. Albert Foong was very good looking and towered a full five inches over his father.
‘Good heavens above, Albert,’ Aggie said, ‘I’d barely have recognised you.’ Foong Lee’s family had returned to Darwin only the preceding week, and Aggie hadn’t seen Albert for four years. ‘How old are you now?’
‘Twenty-one,’ Albert replied, with an accent as Australian as his appearance was Chinese. ‘Had my twenty-first in Adelaide last month.’ He grinned at his father. ‘I told Dad he missed out on a beaut party, it went on all night.’
The group of them posed for the Northern Standard photographer who was taking shots for the society page. From time to time Henrietta looked about for Terence to make sure he wasn’t annoyed by the fact that she was mingling. But he was getting so happily drunk with his air force mates gathered around the beer table, that she’d probably be in the way if she joined him, she decided, so she relaxed and enjoyed the company of her new-found friends instead.
She’d forgotten how pleasant it was to socialise, and she suddenly realised how isolated her life had been over the past three years. Aggie was talking about her plans for socials and fundraising events, and saying how much she’d love to include Henrietta on her planning committee and, as she chatted on, Henrietta would dearly have loved to have accepted every offer there and then. She wanted to do something useful and productive, certainly, but most important of all, she wanted to have a friend. A friend like Aggie Marshall. She decided, however, to take it in easy stages. One never knew what Terence’s reaction might be, he was so unpredictable.
‘I shall be at the Hotel Darwin next Tuesday at two, Aggie,’ she said, feeling that was bold enough to start with.
Paul Trewinnard, whose main pleasure in life was the study of human behaviour, had been watching Henrietta closely. He observed the anxious looks in her husband’s direction, and he observed her relax and enjoy the company of others as she realised she was not under threat. Was her husband violent towards her, he wondered. There was something at odds in Henrietta Galloway. A woman as generous in body and features as she was should be vivacious, confident of her femininity, but he sensed she was not. Whatever the situation, Galloway had certainly kept his wife out of circulation. Paul hoped Henrietta would join forces with Aggie Marshall. Aggie would work her mercilessly, but it would do the young woman good.
The rain had obligingly held off for the afternoon, despite the gathering clouds, but at seven o’clock, as the proceedings were winding down, the deluge started and people fled for the verandahs. Aggie gave Foong Lee a look which said ‘so much for your wireless and the long-term weather forecast’, and Henrietta sought out Terence to suggest they go home.
At first he was loath to leave, he was having too good a time and there was plenty of beer left, he said. But when Hans and two more of his mates accepted the offer to come home to Bullalalla, Terence couldn’t wait to go. The men unashamedly grabbed armloads of beer from the ice crates by the serving table, and Terence happily allowed Henrietta to drive whilst the others followed in Hans’ Landrover. The boys were going to make a night of it.
Henrietta drove slowly through the pouring rain, glancing from time to time in the rear-vision mirror to make sure Hans hadn’t driven off the road, the man really was far too drunk to be behind a wheel.
Well, she thought, now was as good a time as any. ‘You know Aggie Marshall?’ she said, broaching the subject with care.
‘The school teacher? Yeah.’ Terence took a swig from the beer bottle he’d just opened. ‘Met her when she first came to Darwin. She had her foot blown off by a bomb, I heard.’
So that’s how it had happened, Henrietta thought. ‘Yes, she was there today.’
‘Oh?’ He didn’t appear particularly interested. ‘I didn’t see her.’
Henrietta smiled, he hadn’t seen anyone except his mates. ‘She seems very nice.’
‘Yeah, she’s all right, bit of a busybody.’
‘She does a lot of good work. Community stuff. Fundraising and things.’
‘Oh yeah?’ Another swig.
Henrietta took a deep breath, she hoped her timing was right. ‘She wants me to go with her to welcome home the prisoners of war, there’s a boat coming in on Tuesday.’
‘Oh that’s nice.’
She looked sideways at him. Was he drunk enough that he might not remember in the morning, she wondered? But he wasn’t falling about or slurring his words. She went one step further. ‘I enjoyed her company, I’d like us to be friends.’
‘Good idea,’ he said affably. ‘You could do with some friends, you should go into Darwin more often if it makes you happy.’
It had been that easy.
Henrietta was shocked. Aggie had warned her, but she was still shocked. The returned prisoners of war were in a dreadful state. Emaciated, skin hanging from bones, eyes huge in the sunken sockets of gaunt faces. She was glad she’d left Malcolm at home in Nellie’s care instead of bringing him with her as Aggie had originally suggested.
She found the experience harrowing, but also very uplifting. One thing every man had in common, whatever his physical state, was his happiness to be home. Each and every one of them was ecstatic.
‘Jeez, will you look at that,’ a voice would croak, ‘a real Aussie sheila,’ and men would laugh, wheezy laughs that turned into coughs, and they’d feel the cloth of her dress in pleasure, as if paying homage.
Henrietta wanted to cry, but she flirted instead. ‘We have to be careful, I wouldn’t want my husband to find out about us,’ she warned with a twinkle in her eye as she held a man�
�s hand or lit his cigarette.
Aggie was thrilled with the success of her enterprise as she and several members of the AWAS went about the boat conducting their enquiries, seeking out the missing. Henrietta was a Godsend, she thought. And Paul Trewinnard, who had come out with them on the pilot launch, stood to one side watching, enthralled. Was this the real Henrietta Galloway emerging, he wondered? She was glorious.
There was a dance on that night as there always was, courtesy of Aggie and her organising committee, for those POWs fit enough to attend, and the men were disappointed when Henrietta said she couldn’t be there. ‘You’ll be the belle of the ball,’ they said, which had a familiar ring somehow. She declined but, even as she did, she wondered whether, next time, she might not arrange to stay the night in town.
Henrietta had found a purpose in life and she blessed her new friend Aggie Marshall.
When Lucretia van den Mylen had been discovered by the night watchman in a dark corner of the deck, defiled and whimpering with terror, Commandeur Francisco Pelsaert had been beside himself with rage. The whole ship must suffer, he decided, every blackguard aboard must be flogged.
It was his interview with Lucretia herself the following day which would alter the direction of his thinking. Amazingly enough, Lucretia was lucid—the event should surely have been enough to drive any woman insane, Pelsaert thought—and she even named the one person whose voice she had recognised. That of Jan Evertsz, the High Boatswain. It was his words she’d heard amongst the general mutterings of the others.
As Lucretia had scrubbed her body throughout the night, with sea water and rags so harsh that they abraded her skin, refusing all help apart from the delivery of more water, she had pondered the facts. The relentless cleansing of her body had helped keep her mind clear, and some instinct told her that Evertsz had been acting under orders. If he and the rest of the rabble had wished to have their way with her, then they would most surely have done so. The object of the exercise had been her humiliation, Lucretia thought as she scoured the filth from her flesh. But why?
