To Love a Sunburnt Country

by Jackie French

  The two women were clearly enjoying themselves.

  Behind them marched the Gibber’s Creek town band, or what was left of it — elderly men with trumpets, kids with flutes from school, a boy his own age beating a drum. The fire brigade came next; the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, reduced to three members now but still valiantly carrying their banner; the fishing club, with a ten-yard-long papier-mâché Murray cod; the Girl Guides and the Cubs; and, finally, in uniform, their heads proudly erect, the Gibber’s Creek Central School Cadet Corps.

  He had left his cadet uniform at school. Didn’t regret it. They were not his corps and, anyway, just for the moment, he could forget the worry about Nancy, forget he was a schoolboy with the war and world passing him by. This was true magic, far greater than the flowers from his top hat.

  He glanced behind him at Blue and Mah on the elephant’s back. Who would have thought Mah McAlpine had legs as good as that?

  Blue caught his eye and winked.

  He flushed and turned back, pulling out another bunch of dusty paper flowers for the crowd’s applause. Blue was right. It made no difference how much this procession raised. It was good to march: a small defiance. Hitler’s bombs might fall, Japanese parachutists might flutter over Malaya and the islands, but just now he marched with an elephant, as the crowd — slightly smaller perhaps than the number of marchers, and perhaps more dogs than people — cheered on either side. He wondered if this was the real reason women gathered in their precious ‘free’ hours at night to roll bandages, wrap comfort packages, or organise fundraisers. There was comfort in being together.

  He gave himself up to the pleasure of the day.

  Chapter 12

  Gibber’s Creek Gazette, 24 January 1942

  Japan Seizes Port of Rabaul

  A force of five thousand Japanese troops has taken the strategic port of Rabaul on the island of New Britain, vastly outnumbering the Australian 2/22nd Battalion with more than one hundred aircraft-borne divisions. The Australian RAAF commander of the outnumbered and mostly obsolete Wirraways that were left to defend Rabaul against the sweeping tide of the enemy has sent a message in Latin to Australia which translated reads, ‘We who are about to die salute you.’

  SINGAPORE, 27 JANUARY 1942

  NANCY

  She travelled to the Shipping Office by rickshaw again, as she had ever since they had arrived in Singapore. Cars were not permitted, except military or ARP vehicles, though as there were no air-raid warnings in Singapore, nor any air-raid shelters beyond the wide concrete gutters, Nancy wondered how the Singapore Air Raid Patrol deserved its name. From England, she supposed, where enemy bombers were met with British planes and barrage balloons to protect the most important sites. They had been lucky their car hadn’t been stopped the first night they arrived here, either by the military or by an air raid.

  The rickshaw driver wended his way through the wreckage, the stinking ooze of broken sewage pipes and, once, bodies lined on stretchers, waiting for collection. Dust hung in the air, strange-coloured dust perhaps tinted with explosives. Singapore looked worse in daylight. That first night Nancy had been too exhausted to realise how bad things were.

  The line at the Shipping Office was as long as usual, mostly women, and mostly with tired children clinging to them like baby koalas, as if frightened that their mothers too would vanish as the world around them crumbled. But today, at least, there was good news at last. She and Moira had passage booked on The Lady Williams. They were to bring only what they could carry, including bedding and five days’ worth of food, and be at the docks at one am.

  The Raffles’s butlers cleaned and repacked the bedding from their car; the kitchens filled Nancy’s haversack with food: fruitcake, packets of dried fruit, more canned sardines, which could be opened without a can opener, green bananas that would ripen by the next day or the one after, hard and unfamiliar avocado pears. ‘Good for the baby,’ said the soft-voiced butler. ‘Will ripen like bananas and be soft.’

  The hotel arranged the rickshaws, one for their luggage and one for them. Nancy stood with Moira, an amah in white holding Gavin, while the two porters loaded their motley array of goods onto one of the rickshaws. Even so close to midnight, the orchestra still played behind them. A gust of laughter floated out from the Palm Court, and the scent of fried chicken, spices and pastry.

  Nancy gazed back at the Raffles. It was hard to leave this haven for a ship and the dangers of the sea. But even the Raffles must face the storm to come. And beyond the sea was Overflow …

  ‘Excuse me? Miss Clancy?’

  It was Mr Harding, or whatever his rank was. ‘Mr Harding, how … nice … to see you.’ She hoped she sounded properly Malaya-society polite. ‘Moira, this is Mr Harding, who kindly allowed me to sit at his breakfast table. Mr Harding, my sister-in-law, Mrs Benjamin Clancy.’

  Mr Harding lifted his hat to Moira. ‘A pleasure to meet you, Mrs Clancy. I hope you don’t mind. I have brought you a going-away present.’

  ‘I … er … thank you,’ said Nancy, staring at the two life jackets in his hands.

  ‘Delighted to meet you, Mr Harding.’ Moira sounded anything but delighted. ‘Thank you so much for thinking of us, but I’m sure the ship will have life jackets.’

  ‘No, I’m afraid they won’t, Mrs Clancy,’ said Mr Harding bluntly. ‘Or at least they won’t have enough for the number of passengers that will be aboard. I’d wish you “bon voyage”, but I’m afraid it will be anything but a “bon” one. May I wish you a swift and safe passage instead.’ He handed the life jackets to the porters to put with the luggage. ‘One more thing.’

  He held something towards Nancy. For a moment she thought it was a scrap of drab paper.

  It was a gum leaf, dry and crackling when she gripped it too tightly. She relaxed her hand, and held it to her nose.

  It smelt of summer and cicadas. She could almost smell the mutton chops on the fire, the scent of the river in flood.

  Mr Harding looked at her steadily. ‘A lesson I learnt in the last war. Keep believing in home, Miss Clancy, and you will get there.’

  He stepped back, up under the darkened Raffles portico. ‘I’ll wave you off,’ he said. ‘Everyone should have someone to wave them goodbye.’

  Nancy sat in the rickshaw, took Gavin on her lap. She lifted his chubby hand. ‘Wave to Mr Harding, darling. Say bye bye.’

  ‘Shllobbims?’ asked Gavin, drooling gently onto her knees.

  The rickshaw glided off into the even greater darkness around the drive. Nancy glanced back. It was almost impossible to see Mr Harding, but she knew he was there. She lifted the hand that held the gum leaf and smelt it again. But there was no scent now. Had she imagined it before? How old was this leaf?

  It didn’t matter. Believing mattered. She would get home, with Moira, with Gavin. When Singapore fell — and it must fall — Ben would escape. Another Dunkirk. Ship after ship would bring their army home again …

  Gavin pulled at her hair and began to chew it, more drool dripping down his chin. She wiped it with one of the Raffles napkins, tied around his neck by the amah and forgotten as they left. She wondered why she was crying.

  The rickshaw drivers cycled through the rubble. Behind them searchlights raked the northern sky. A low familiar rumble turned into planes. Nancy waited, her skin tingling, for them to come closer, for the dull thud of bombs, for the crash of walls and exploding cars. Should they ask their rickshaw drivers to stop, so they could shelter in the gutter?

  But the planes stayed to the north, skimming in and out of the searchlights. The first bombs dropped, the explosions flaring into the sky, redder and brighter than the searchlights for a moment, then dimming back to a distant glow of firelight.

  Please, she thought, don’t let them bomb the docks tonight. Let us get away from this place.

  The rickshaw with their belongings stopped. Theirs did too. Their driver pointed to a new mass of shattered rock on the road, a leaning tree festooned with broken te
lephone and electricity lines. He shrugged.

  It was obvious the rickshaws could go no further.

  ‘Will you help us carry our luggage?’ asked Moira.

  Their driver looked blank.

  ‘Helpee carry luggage!’ said Moira more loudly. She held out a note.

  The man took the money, his face still blank. He helped the other rickshaw driver unload the luggage onto the side of the road, then, still expressionless, climbed onto his bicycle and pedalled away. His companion followed him.

  ‘Stupid man. He can’t have understood,’ said Moira.

  He understood, thought Nancy. She thought of Ah Jong back at their borrowed house in Kuala Lumpur, of the Malay police removing and leaving their uniforms behind to vanish back through the jungle to their villages. This was their home. Why risk their lives — or their rickshaws being stolen — for strangers?

  The bedding had been rolled up into a kind of swag, held in place by the mosquito net. Nancy shrugged her arms into the haversack, wriggled the life jackets onto each shoulder, hoisted the bundle in one hand, and a suitcase in the other. She was about to say that Moira would have to carry the other suitcase when she saw that her sister-in-law already held it as she picked her way through the night, Gavin perched on her hip. Nancy staggered after her.

  The only light came from the searchlights and the glow of fires. But the breeze came from the sea, smelling of salt and smoke and the tang of coal, and the road went in the right direction.

  At last they reached the docks. Nancy produced her pass, with the name of their ship. A tall corporal pointed down to a far wharf, past boxes of ammunition, piled or dumped like children’s blocks, a patchwork quilt of soldiers, some huddled on haversacks and swags, others marching in formation, coolies lugging boxes.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Nancy wearily.

  The corporal looked at her again. ‘Here, I’ll take those.’ He relieved her of the bedding, hoisted it under his arm, and took the suitcases that she and Moira were carrying in his hands. They followed the path he forged through the crowd.

  ‘Here you are.’ The corporal plonked the luggage down at the end of a straggling line.

  Moira stared. ‘This can’t be right! We’re booked on The Lady Williams.’

  ‘That’s her all right.’

  ‘But there can’t be cabins for all of us on that.’

  The corporal looked at her with sympathy. ‘Won’t be cabins for any of youse. But it’s your ticket out of here, missus. Just wish I was going with you.’

  Nancy stared at the ship bobbing quietly at the end of their line. She had glimpsed ships that morning; knew from the chaos of the Shipping Office that not only would they not be travelling first class, in a cabin to themselves on a luxury passenger liner, but had accepted they would be six to a cabin on a far lesser vessel, perhaps, with more beds made up in the dining room …

  She had not expected this.

  The Lady Williams was a cargo ship, despite her aristocratic name. She was not much bigger than a Sydney Harbour ferry, but shabbier, paint peeling from her funnel, barnacles on her sides. The decks already looked crammed with women. If there were cabins, they would be full.

  But it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered, except Overflow, somewhere ahead. She could face bombs, face even the Japanese Army, if only she had her family, which was not just people, but the land she knew.

  She glanced at Moira, expecting protest. But Moira just held Gavin closer. Her face held nothing but exhaustion, and a glimpse of loss so great that Nancy had to look away.

  ‘Ben will be all right,’ she muttered.

  ‘Yes. Of course,’ said Moira. Her voice was hoarse. She wore her pearls, Nancy saw, rings on three of her fingers, her good emerald brooch on the lapel of her sensible travelling suit. Keeping up the side, thought Nancy, then realised that jewellery could also be sold; could be used if necessary to provide them with food and shelter and help, and that it was safer worn, not in luggage that might be lost or stolen.

  She looked at the life jackets sitting on their bedroll. If the ship … If they had to use the life jackets, money would be sodden, useless. She suddenly wished that she hadn’t been so steadfast in refusing jewellery for birthdays or Christmases. She too might have had pearls, in case … She thrust the thought away.

  The soldier gave a tired grin. ‘Hang on a sec.’ He strode over to a pile of boxes, already opened, and rummaged inside one. He held up a teddy bear and a box of chocolates. ‘Christmas has come a bit late.’ He held them out to Moira.

  ‘We can’t take —’

  ‘Don’t belong to nobody now, lady. Unless the Japs want them.’

  Nancy tried to imagine the Japanese commandos she’d seen — was it not yet two months back? — clutching teddy bears as well as bayonets. The image wouldn’t work.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Moira.

  The man gave a sketchy salute. He vanished back into the dappled dimness of a thousand uniforms.

  They stood in the ragged line, old women, young women, European and Eurasian, women with babies, children holding the hands of amahs or clutching their mothers’ necks, like Gavin, now draped over Moira’s shoulder blissfully asleep and unaware of both his new teddy bear and the danger behind, above and soon below.

  They ate the chocolates rather than start on their other food. Chocolates would not keep, and these were already patchily white and floury on the surface from the heat. It seemed surreal to be deciding between orange cream or almond whirl from the menu on the lid. Nancy let the chocolate melt in her mouth instead of chewing it, making each one last longer. It filled in time. There was comfort in the taste of the familiar too.

  Gavin woke. He blinked at the chaos around him, and gave a small whimper.

  ‘I think he’s hungry,’ said Nancy.

  ‘I’m not going to feed him in the middle of the docks,’ said Moira. ‘He’ll have to wait till we’re on board.’

  ‘Can I give him a chocolate?’

  ‘He’s too young,’ said Moira tiredly, and then, ‘Oh, very well. Just the plain milk chocolate one, and break it into pieces first.’

  Nancy bit off a small piece. She pressed it to Gavin’s small warm mouth.

  He wrinkled his nose as if she had fed him dog droppings, and spat it out onto the Raffles napkin, then seemed to change his mind and reached for it again.

  ‘He likes chocolate.’

  ‘Everyone likes chocolate,’ said Moira, closing her eyes.

  ‘Here, I’ll take him for a while. I’m going to sit on the luggage.’

  The eyes opened. ‘You will not. Making a spectacle of yourself.’

  We are about to try to sail between enemy ships and mines, she thought. German U-boats below us, Japanese planes above. And Moira is worried about me sitting on my swag. But nothing mattered except escape, and Overflow ahead of them.

  She remained standing. She would not add to Moira’s weariness and distress.

  By two am they were on board, had climbed down the narrow hatch into the meat locker that would house more than five hundred women and children crammed below decks, the only ventilation coming from the jammed-open hatch.

  They deposited their bedding. Nancy stood, skirts out, to give Moira a modicum of privacy while she fed Gavin. The chocolate might have satisfied his hunger, but he needed a drink, and any water in this land was suspect unless you had seen it boiled yourself.

  At last they made their way back up to the deck. Despite the order to be there so early, the ship seemed in no hurry to cast off. More and more women shuffled aboard. We were lucky, thought Nancy, looking at a ship just beyond theirs, with women and children clambering out of a rocking ship’s boat and climbing a dangling rope ladder, sailors leaning over to heave them on board. At least we didn’t have to climb up the side.

  Another roar of planes, closer now. An ack-ack gun fired from the wharf, the ship rocking in protest. The planes were coming closer now. Bombs thudded, near enough for her to hear the screams, the fall of
bricks and concrete. They waited, huddled in the crowd, each one knowing there was no shelter. This was the only escape. If the docks were lost, then so were they.

  But no bombs fell on the wharves or ships. At last the engine noise faded to a mutter, then disappeared. Daylight seeped through the smoke and dust. There was no shade. A sailor distributed packets of biscuits and already opened tins of bully beef to the women on deck, one packet and one tin between Moira and Nancy.

  They sat and ate. Neither had any appetite nor was the food appetising, but they had experienced enough by now to know that they needed to eat when food was available.

  ‘Not exactly the Raffles,’ said an elderly woman next to them, dipping a biscuit into a can of meat. She wore emeralds at her throat, and a tiara — Nancy tried not to giggle — an emerald tiara in daylight, peeking out from under a respectable sun hat.

  Nancy smiled agreement.

  They finished the beef — there was no point saving some for later as it would soon go bad in the heat. Nancy kept half the biscuits, in case there was a wait till their next meal. They might need all the food in their pack before the voyage was over. Nancy stood in front of Moira again to give her some privacy while she fed Gavin.

  The heat grew. Water, she thought. We have forgotten to bring water. Somehow she had assumed that with the ocean around them there’d be no need of water. Stupid, she thought, stupid … just as another sailor rolled a forty-four-gallon drum on board. He shoved in a bung, turned a tap and began to fill jugs of water. He followed another sailor holding a tray of tin mugs around the deck. ‘Keep the mug, you’ll need it later.’

  ‘Do you know where we are headed?’ The woman next to them looked Eurasian, her grey serge suit too hot and dark for the tropics, with gold earrings and gold rings.