by Judy Nunn
Out on the harbour, ships were wrecked where they lay, or torn from their moorings to be washed ashore like so much flotsam.
At Darwin Airport the control tower’s wind gauge recorded 217 kilometre an hour winds before the gauge itself was ripped apart and blown to oblivion. Millions of dollars worth of light aircraft were reduced to scrap metal, hangars blown away, steel girders twisted like spaghetti, and the new air terminal gutted and flooded.
The onslaught was relentless. And all the while, above the crash of colliding debris and the scrape of corrugated iron on concrete, was the voice of the cyclone itself. Ominous and omnipotent, Tracy roared like a hundred maddened lions, as if she would be satisfied with nothing less than the entire destruction of Darwin.
The roof of Maxie’s house had disappeared in the first swift rage of the cyclone. With it went the downpipe, and with the downpipe, Nick Coustas. Before he knew what had happened Nick had been swept from the balcony.
Kit saw it happen and raced down to help him, yelling above the screams of the terrified partygoers as he did so. ‘Get downstairs everyone! Get downstairs!’
Kit dragged Nick into the laundry where several of them huddled against the stone walls. Others fled to the relative safety of the garage.
‘I’ve busted my arm,’ Nick loudly complained.
‘Shit mate you’re lucky,’ Kit yelled back. ‘If you weren’t so pissed you’d probably be dead.’
Upstairs, Maxie and Trish had been in a drunken, post-coital slumber when the roof blew away. Suddenly, the world was roaring around them, the bedclothes were whipped off them and the rain beat down on their naked bodies. Trish screamed hysterically, and Maxie dragged her under the heavy bedstead where they lay quaking with terror as debris crashed onto the very bed where they’d just been sleeping.
At Mavis Campbell’s house in Casuarina, Aggie had been persuaded to stay the night. She’d been about to leave at eleven-thirty. ‘Goodness,’ she’d said, noticing the time, ‘we’ve talked half the night away.’
‘You’ll never get a taxi in this weather,’ Mavis had remarked, and Aggie had agreed it would be sensible to stay.
The women had retired to their respective rooms for the night and both were rudely awakened by the first wrath of Tracy. They met in the hall and, highly practical women, immediately set about looking for candles and torches; bound to be a power failure, they agreed. Mavis’s house, small and solidly built, sat in a shallow gully and they felt relatively safe. As the horrendous noise screamed all about them, they sat silently in the lounge room, well back from the windows should they shatter, and imagined the devastation being wrought in the blackness of the streets.
Within the safety of the cellar beneath Foong Lee’s home, Albert Foong cradled his terrified daughter and blessed his father’s wisdom as the family sat listening to Tracy’s anger. There was no point in talking, there was nothing to say. Besides, the human voice could barely be heard above the all-pervasive growl of the cyclone.
In a stupor induced by his semi-concussed state and half a bottle of Scotch, Terence Galloway had slept through the first hour and a half of Cyclone Tracy. It was only when the windows of his study shattered, showering him with glass, that he awakened to the chaos which was destroying his house along with the rest of Darwin.
He sat bolt upright in his chair as the wind howled in through the open window. Jesus Christ, what was happening? It was pitch black. Then he heard Tracy’s voice. The ghoulish roar. So the cyclone had hit them, after all. He fumbled about in the drawers of his desk and found the torch which he always kept there. He turned it on, papers were swirling about the study like so much confetti. Then he directed the torch’s beam at the revolver which lay on the desk before him, fully loaded, ready for action, and he remembered his plan. The madness of the cyclone might well be to his advantage, he thought as he picked up the gun.
He walked from his study towards the front of the house and the lounge room. But there was no lounge room. The roof and the walls had gone, only the floor remained, covered with shattered glass and timber. The wind was shrieking, tearing at the rear section of the roof, determined that nothing should remain standing.
In the torch’s beam, Terence saw Fran’s body. She lay sprawled on her back, covered in glass and drenched with blood. Such a lot of blood, he thought. Then he saw the wound to her neck. It was cut to the bone, her jugular vein had been sliced right through. Well, that explained it.
Terence headed for the rear of the house, any minute the whole place would go. He raced down the back stairs, bending double against the gale-force winds that met him, and struggled his way to the garage.
As he backed the Jaguar out into the street, he could feel the wind buffeting the car, threatening to overturn it. He drove slowly, avoiding the hazards he could see everywhere in the high beam of the headlights. A fallen tree, an overturned car. Things were sailing through the air overhead, but he couldn’t make out what they were. He swerved to avoid a large sheet of galvanised iron swirling down the road. Too late, they collided, and for a moment his vision was lost before the sheet of iron was whipped away, digging ugly holes in the Jaguar’s bonnet, but fortunately leaving the windscreen intact. He slowed down still further. No need to hurry, he had all the time in the world. Behind him the cyclone was ripping his house to pieces, but who cared, he could always build another house, bigger and grander. And who cared about the scarred Jaguar, normally his pride and joy, he’d buy another one. Tonight he had business to attend to, things to sort out. And what better cover could he have than Cyclone Tracy. As he crawled along through the destruction and mayhem which surrounded him, Terence felt a sense of elation.
Unable to withstand the relentless attack, the whole upper section of Maxie’s house gave way. With the protection of neither roof nor walls, the supporting poles listed to one side before finally crashing to the ground. And they took with them the bedroom floor, the bedstead, Maxie and Trish.
In the laundry and the garage, Kit and the others crouched on the ground covering their heads with their arms, hearing the house crash all about them, expecting that any second their own shelters would cave in.
Then, only moments later, all was still. It was a minute or so before anyone dared believe it could be over. One by one, they stepped outside into the black, eerie stillness. It seemed Cyclone Tracy had retreated as swiftly as she had attacked.
Everywhere, people surveyed the damage. Some naively attempted to start on the clean up. ‘It’s the eye,’ they were warned. ‘It’ll be back.’
Kit took a head count, Maxie and Trish were missing. Oh Jesus, he thought, they’d been upstairs. Maxie had taken Trish off to the bedroom. But that had been hours ago.
They turned on car headlights and searched amongst the wreckage with cigarette lighters and matches. It was only minutes before they found them. The naked bodies of Maxie and Trish lay mangled beneath debris. Beneath the very bedstead under which they had sought safety.
One of the girls was crying hysterically, and several of the young men started trying to dig out the bodies.
‘Don’t,’ Kit told them. ‘Get back under cover.’
‘Christ alive, Kit, we can’t just leave them there.’ Nick Coustas stood nursing his broken arm and staring down at the lifeless body of his friend.
‘Yes we can.’ Kit started to sprint down the street. ‘Get everyone under cover!’ he yelled back at them. ‘It’s only the eye!’
Kit had just one objective in mind. Aggie. Aggie lived two blocks further down the Esplanade. If the cyclone had made such mincemeat of Maxie’s, what the hell would it have done to Aggie’s little weatherboard? Oh Christ let her be alive, he prayed.
As the Jaguar pulled into the drive of the O’Malleys’ house, the wind suddenly stopped. Terence left the headlights on and stepped out of the car into an unnatural calm which matched his mood. It was uncanny. He and the cyclone seemed to be as one. There was a sense of deliberation in the cyclone, as if during this brief res
pite Tracy was mustering her forces for her next dire attack. It suited Terence’s purpose to perfection. He would kill Kit and dispose of the body during the cyclone’s next onslaught.
In the headlight’s beam, the house was clearly a wreck, but the granny flat built beneath it was intact. As he walked up the side path, Terence wondered whether the O’Malleys were dead, that too would serve his purpose. But the entire place appeared deserted. Damn, he thought, where the hell was Kit? Then he realised the Kingswood was missing and he remembered. Of course. ‘Maxie’s having a party,’ Kit had said.
Terence walked back to the Jaguar. He got in and turned off the headlights, no point in drawing attention to himself, up and down the street people were tentatively venturing out of their houses. He could hear the mutter of disbelief as they surveyed the destruction. A baby was screaming, a woman crying. He started up the car and backed out into the road. Where the hell did Maxie live? He contemplated driving around the streets of Darwin looking for the Kingswood. Then the obvious solution occurred to him. Aggie would know where Maxie lived.
In the eerie lull of the cyclone’s eye, Mavis and Aggie went out into the street to see if they could help some of the stricken people. The town of Casuarina had been shattered and Mavis’s house was one of the few left standing. Hundreds were seeking refuge in the nearby high school, the women were told. There were children and wounded. Mavis and Aggie gathered torches and candles, bandages and medical supplies, all they could carry, and rushed to Casuarina High School. They knew they didn’t have long.
It was just as Kit had feared, Aggie’s house had been demolished, ripped from its very foundations. Panic seized him.
‘Aggie!’ he yelled. ‘Aggie!’ And he raced frantically about the wreckage, heaving aside beams and debris, searching for her body, praying that by some miracle she might be alive.
Terence saw him in the beam of the headlights. So it was going to be this easy, he thought. The entire street was deserted. It had been almost twenty minutes since the cyclone’s wrath had subsided, and those naive enough to have believed it was over had now been convinced that it was only the eye. Everyone had taken cover. The whole of Darwin was cowering, waiting for Tracy’s return. There were just the two of them, Terence thought. Just the two of them out here in the street.
Terence turned off the headlights and took the revolver from his pocket as he got out of the car.
Kit had wondered who was foolish enough to be out in a vehicle during the eye of the cyclone but he’d been grateful for the headlights. He ran to the shadowy figure standing beside the open car door. ‘Turn them on again will you, mate,’ he said, breathless from his exertion. ‘She’s got to be trapped here somewhere, help me find her.’
‘I’ll help you find her, Kit.’
Kit recognised the voice of Terence Galloway.
‘I’ll help you find her after you’ve given me the locket.’
Kit instinctively clutched the pocket of his shirt. He’d forgotten that he’d been carrying the locket all this time. He was relieved to feel it still there, to know that he hadn’t lost it amongst the chaos of the past several hours.
Terence laughed. It was getting easier by the minute. He’d thought he might have to take Kit back to his flat to kill him. Here and now was much more convenient.
As if the gods were yet further in his favour, there was an almighty roar and Tracy once again attacked with all the vengeful force she could muster. No-one would even hear the gunshot, Terence thought, and he raised the revolver as he gripped onto the open car door to prevent himself being blown from his feet.
Kit staggered back with the force of the wind. ‘Take cover!’ he yelled.
Terence fired.
As he dived to the ground, Kit saw the flash from the muzzle of the revolver and, amidst the furore of the cyclone, he heard the sharp report of gunfire.
But in the very instant Terence pulled the trigger, his ally turned against him. It seemed the maddened beast that was Tracy no longer favoured Terence Galloway.
As if in slow motion, Terence felt the car door buckle in his hands like foil wrapping paper. He turned towards the car and, as it reared up onto its side, he felt himself falling backwards with it, unable to move his feet, pinned to the Jaguar as the full weight of it crashed down on him, the metal framework digging deep into his chest. Terence Galloway’s scream of mortal agony mingled with Tracy’s roar. Then, as his cry was reduced to a death rattle, he felt himself moving. He felt nothing more after that.
The Jaguar travelled a good fifty metres down the Esplanade, grinding Terence’s lifeless body to a pulp beneath it, and finally coming to rest against an uprooted tree. Then Tracy, like a spoilt child having destroyed a favourite toy, turned her attention elsewhere.
As he lay on the ground, Kit’s eyes followed the dark shape of the Jaguar, watching its clumsy, macabre dance down the street before it was swallowed up in the blackness.
Terence Galloway had tried to kill him. Kit had seen the flash of gunfire, he’d heard the shot. And now Terence Galloway was dead.
Kit rose and, head down, buckled against the wind, he made for cover.
Around the country, newspapers carried reports of Tracy’s carnage. ‘KILLER CYCLONE TRACY BLASTS DARWIN OFF THE MAP’. ‘TRACY DEVASTATES DARWIN’. ‘DARWIN TERROR STORM: 40 DIE’.
The reports differed. The death toll varied, but was eventually confirmed at forty-nine. And with rescuers frantically combing the wreckage in the hope of finding survivors, it was feared there might be more lying dead beneath rubble. Thousands had been wounded by crashing masonry, glass and iron. Sixteen people were missing at sea, including two crew members of the navy patrol vessel HMAS Arrow which had sunk in Darwin Harbour. It was believed there could yet be many more fatalities at sea—the RAAF had mounted a search for thirteen small ships listed as missing.
Winds were reported to have reached 250 kilometres an hour, cutting all power and communication lines to the rest of Australia as well as destroying ninety percent of the city’s buildings. Tens of thousands had been rendered homeless. Army reports described Darwin as looking as though it had been hit by an atomic bomb.
Major-General Alan Stretton, Director-General of the National Disasters Organisation, arrived in Darwin with teams of doctors, nurses and medical supplies. The Prime Minister, Gough Whitlam, was expected to cut short his tour of Europe to return to what was reported as being Australia’s worst natural disaster.
Evacuation of the city began immediately. Massive air-lifts took place. The homeless needed to be relocated and, with the destruction of water and sewerage systems, outbreaks of typhoid and dysentery were feared.
For the second time in her short history, the city of Darwin, gateway to the north, had been reduced to rubble.
Foong Lee ignored Albert’s pleas to join the family in their move to Adelaide. He’d stayed after the bombing, he said, and he’d stay after Tracy. He was one of the few who still had a home; it was his duty to help rebuild Darwin, he said. So Albert stayed with him. The two men farewelled their wives and family and set about resurrecting the restaurant. Albert’s home and the store had both been destroyed, but the restaurant was salvageable, and Foong Lee decided it would serve as a soup kitchen. Fresh food supplies were scarce but, as relief poured in, they would be able to garner what they could and serve free meals for the needy.
Aggie Marshall was of the same mind. She moved in to Mavis Campbell’s, joined the official relief committee, and started work immediately on the distribution of funds and supplies which were arriving from the federal government and from fundraising bodies all over the country.
Kit Galloway didn’t even think of moving. NTN was Darwin’s link with the outside world and he was too busy reporting on every aspect of the disaster. A new mayor was elected in the aftermath of Tracy, and the irony of the choice was not lost on Kit. Dr Ella Stack was a robust little woman who took great pride in the fact that she had delivered some 2,000 Darwin babies over the years. T
o her, the city was a sick child in need of care. Kit wondered what Terence Galloway’s reaction would have been to the fact that the office he’d so eagerly sought had been won by a woman.
It was several weeks after the disaster, when the final statistics and death lists had been published, that a thought occurred to Foong Lee. He was surprised it hadn’t occurred to him sooner, but then in the wake of Tracy he had been understandably preoccupied.
Just before dawn on a Sunday morning, he awoke to the sudden realisation that there was no longer any need for secrecy. He lay staring at the ceiling and wondered how best to go about things. Several hours later, he made two telephone calls.
In West Perth, Jessica Williams put down the telephone receiver, grabbed her car keys and raced out of the house she shared with two other young women. Waratah Avenue, Nedlands, she thought as she drove, good God, it was the adjoining suburb to Claremont, her childhood home where her parents still lived.
A pleasant suburban house, probably built in the fifties, it was surrounded by a low stone fence with a neatly cut front lawn and two healthy cumquat trees.
