To Love a Sunburnt Country

by Jackie French

  ‘Dad? Is everything OK?’

  ‘Don’t speak like an American.’

  Which meant that Dad was worried. He was always easygoing except when he was worried.

  Michael ran down the stairs. ‘Dad, I’m sixteen now. If there’s a problem at the factory —’

  ‘What? No, nothing like that. Nothing to worry about. Finished your packing?’

  ‘You are worried.’

  His father looked at him. Really looked at him, assessing. He nodded. ‘Come into the study.’

  Michael followed him, then sat in one of the shabby leather chairs by the desk. His father sat too, with the slightly awkward flop that was one of the last reminders of his stroke a decade earlier. ‘Michael, can you keep this to yourself?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Are you sure? Don’t say it lightly.’

  ‘Yes. Of course.’

  ‘That was my Sydney agent. He’s just had word from Singapore …’

  ‘Nancy!’

  His father nodded. ‘The Lady Williams has been sunk by a Japanese bomb. One of the other ships nearby saw it.’

  Nancy. He felt for loss, for agony. It wasn’t there. He’d know if she was dead. He’d have to know it.

  Wouldn’t he?

  ‘We have to let them know at Overflow.’

  ‘No! Michael, it’s not public knowledge yet. In wartime, well, it’s not our decision who to tell and when. We might be worrying them unnecessarily too. The ships were travelling in a convoy. Still are. That’s how they know The Lady Williams was sunk. If the wrong people find out where the convoy is, it will be easier to target them. My agent didn’t know how many passengers were picked up by the other ships. Won’t know till they reach port.’

  ‘When will that be?’

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t even know where they are heading. Information like that is confidential these days too. You know that, Michael.’

  Other ships nearby. Nancy had been picked up. She must have been picked up.

  ‘They’re not all like the Titanic,’ his father added gently. ‘There’s a good chance they had enough time to get the boats launched. And with other ships in the area … there’s every chance that they would have been picked up, so. A very good chance.’

  Somehow, hearing it repeated made that chance seem smaller, not greater. Michael asked dully, ‘What do we do now?’

  ‘Wait,’ said his father.

  ‘I can’t go to school not knowing.’

  ‘You can, you know. If you don’t go to school, we’ll need to give a reason.’

  Yes, he could. If Nancy could survive a sinking ship, he could manage the afternoon train to school.

  ‘Mrs Mutton is cooking roast chicken for lunch. And peach crumble. Your mother agreed to the generator being used for three hours to make ice cream.’

  He tried a smile. ‘You mean it is my duty to eat ice cream, to thank Mrs Mutton, and to not worry Mum?’

  ‘Yes,’ said his father.

  ‘Well,’ he said lightly, ‘if that’s all I can do for the war effort today, I’d better get on with it. It’s … it’s hard, Dad. Being at school in times like these. I could at least be working at the factory. Or here.’

  ‘You’ll be more use when you’ve finished school.’

  He didn’t believe that. Perfecting Ancient Greek and Latin grammar was not going to make him a better farmer, or even factory assistant. But he knew his parents — neither of whom had even done their Fourth Form exams, much less their Leaving Certificates — put an inordinate value on both their sons’ educations. He knew that they hoped he’d go to university, or at least to agricultural college. Leaving school might be an infinitesimal help to the war effort. It would be a mighty slap in the face of his parents.

  ‘You’ll let me know as soon as there’s any news?’

  ‘Of course. I’m sure the Clancys will let us know as soon as they get word too.’

  Thomas Thompson looked at his son. Said nothing. Just looked. Michael knew without the words being said that if the news was bad, his parents would be at the school when he received it. That they’d make sure he had whatever time he needed before he faced his friends again.

  You did not hurt parents like his without an overwhelming reason to cause them pain. He would stay at school, for them.

  None of the fellows at school, he thought, would understand his bond with Nancy. None could understand what her loss would mean either. Could his parents? His mind automatically veered away from thinking about the depth or nature of their relationship.

  Nancy was alive. Had to be alive.

  ‘Thanks, Dad,’ he said. He stood. ‘See you at lunch.’

  ‘I’ll be there,’ said Thomas Thompson. He reached up — when had Michael grown so tall that his father had to reach? — and hugged his son.

  Chapter 15

  Gibber’s Creek Gazette, 29 January 1942

  WASTE PAPER MAKES MUNITIONS!

  You can help by saving ALL FORMS OF WASTE PAPER.

  Newspapers, flat or crushed, letters, receipts, envelopes, old books, wrapping paper, flat or crushed, cigarette packets, cartons, cardboard boxes, magazines.

  A USED ENVELOPE MAKES A .303 CARTRIDGE WAD.

  All donations to be left at the rear of the CWA rooms, Tuesdays and Saturdays.

  SOMEWHERE SOUTH OF SINGAPORE, 29 JANUARY 1942

  NANCY

  Time passed, and so did water. Waves kicked at her and slapped. The screams behind her grew more frantic, and with them the guilt that she was here, not there, helping no one but herself, increased. But for now that was all that she could do.

  She had felt the ship sink behind her, a giant gulp, fingers of water dragging her down. She struggled, but in a minute it was gone, and new waves were punching her, trying to drown her.

  Then they too were gone, leaving only flames that flickered above the water.

  Something new pushed her now. It was like the current in the river. But the sea didn’t have currents, did it? She tried to remember geography at school, vaguely remembered that it did. It must, for there could be nothing else to push her now. Which way was it taking her? She pushed herself upwards for a second, saw the land no further away. At least she was still heading in the right direction.

  She called out, ‘Moira!’

  No answer, except the screams behind her.

  ‘Gavin,’ she whispered, and felt her heart bleed, for his tininess, his helplessness. For love.

  She stroked and kicked.

  Night was a blessing. Her body ached with heat. Then it became a curse, as she felt the current change around her. How could she know where land was now?

  Stroke and kick. Kick and kick and stroke. Perhaps she was swimming away from land. Perhaps she should just rest …

  She woke from a doze, her face in water. For a second she panicked, then realised the life jacket still held her up. God bless Mr Harding, she thought.

  ‘Moira? Moira, can you hear me?’

  A voice, not Moira’s, but speaking English, came back out of the watery darkness: ‘Who’s that?’

  ‘My name is Nancy Clancy.’

  ‘There are five of us here. We’re holding onto a crate. There’s room for another if you can get to us.’

  Others had survived then. Had they jumped, like she and Moira had done? ‘Thank you, but I’ve got a life jacket.’

  ‘Good luck then.’

  ‘Have you seen a woman with a little boy? Moira Clancy?’

  The voice, fainter now over the suck and clap of water, ‘No. You’re the only one we’ve heard. Hope she made it.’

  ‘Do you know how far we’ve got to swim?’

  No answer. Had they even heard her?

  Nancy kicked, and kicked again, tried to hear if anyone else was swimming nearby, but could only hear the slap of waves and somewhere the drone of an engine. Plane or boat?

  She should have swum towards the others. At least there would have been company, and she would not have been alone in this
great sea. She called again, ‘Hello?’

  No answer.

  ‘Hello? Where are you?’

  Only the waves replied.

  ‘Hello! Can anyone hear me?’

  She kicked. Stroke and kick and kick and stroke. I am alive, she thought. If I am alive, then Gavin and Moira may be too. Stroke and kick and kick and stroke. After a while she dozed again.

  She felt the dawn before she saw it, a lightening of the air. The current changed about her. She tried to see through the darkness; she failed to make out anything — or perhaps there was nothing but black water to see.

  Her body ached, ache beyond pain. It was as though the salt had dragged all the water from her body. Her skin felt dry, even as the waves slapped it.

  The water pulled at her now, wet arms that pushed and tugged. As the light grew brighter, she managed a vague heave up.

  And saw the beach. Strange pink sand. No, not sand, pebbles. Palm trees. A curl of waves.

  She sank back in the water, wondering if she had the strength to cry. Decided that she didn’t, but that she could still kick. Her feet seemed feeble against the strength of the water. She let the current carry her instead. A wave, stronger than the rest, picked her up and rolled her over, her face down in froth and water. She struggled frantically up towards the light.

  The beach was closer now. Grey things lay draped across it. She tried to block her mind to what they were, but brain and eyes computed nonetheless.

  Bodies. Women’s bodies, in dresses streaked with red. A man stood there, above the women. A small man, in grey and green, a helmet on his head, a rifle in his hand.

  She had to help. She had to run. She could do neither.

  She tried to duck back into the water, but another wave pushed her up. The man strode forwards, raised the gun. He pointed it at her …

  The bullet bit. She screamed, grabbing her waist, saw the blood …

  He raised the gun again.

  Her body reacted before she could even think. She flopped back, as if she was as dead as the grey shapes on the beach, her face down, head tilted sideways a little to allow her to take brief gulps of air in the seconds when her mouth was free of water, letting the life jacket keep her up. She felt the waves drag her this way and that. Her arms flopped and folded as the water tossed and sucked at them.

  She waited for the next shot, the last one, the one that would leave her dead.

  It didn’t come.

  The waves lifted her and tossed her, back and forth. She felt sandy gravel under her dangling hands and feet; she didn’t dare move towards the safety of the land, which was no safety. Nowhere was safe at all.

  At last a wave retreated, leaving her on the prickles of the beach. She felt water tickle her waist, felt coldness seep from her side, another wave touch her toes. Now there was time for pain. For grief that swallowed up the world, but no strength to even remember why she grieved.

  And that was all.

  The world was dark. She wondered if she was dead or unconscious — then realised that if she was either, she would not be wondering, nor would her side scream like a tiger had bitten it.

  Not a tiger. A bullet.

  She moved her head cautiously. Her vision blurred, but she could see the sand, the white froth of waves. Something wet licked her foot, and then her knee.

  A wave. The tide must be coming in. Panic shivered across her skin. She could be sucked back into the immensity of the ocean. What the sea had spat out it might grab back. She dug her fingers into the pebbles, found that she could move, a slow slide up the beach. At last the rocks were dry, beyond the high-water mark, she hoped.

  She dared not try to stand nor even look around; nor did she think she could. Everything was pain, her side worst of all. She lay, puffing weakly against the stones. Darkness spread across her once again.

  ‘Mem, mem, wake.’

  She felt her head lifted, something held to her lips. She drank automatically, then thirstily, something sweet and cool and vaguely familiar. Coconut water, she realised, blinking at the waves of light that crashed across her from the sea and the sky.

  ‘Mem must come now.’ A woman, young, brown-faced, a shapeless patterned dress, bare feet and covered head.

  ‘I don’t think I can.’ She had been shot. You couldn’t move when you’d been shot. She tentatively pushed her hand down to her side, half expecting it would go into a welling hole and then she’d die.

  Instead it simply hurt. She felt again, held back a cry. The bullet had hit the life jacket, then dug a small hole across the edge of her waist. But though her hand came up red, the bleeding had almost stopped. Certainly it hadn’t welled onto the sand.

  She let the thin arms help her to sit, and then to stand. She looked across the beach.

  Bodies. All women, as she’d thought, though one might be an older child. All dead, their blood already black on the strange pinkness of the beach. A tangle of wood had been washed up to one side. She wondered if the dead women had used it like a raft. Had theirs been the voices in the night?

  Her heart clenched. Moira? She peered again, body after body, looking for the olive green of Moira’s suit, a small form that might be Gavin. But the only body that was Moira’s size and hair colour wore a white dress. White, except for blood.

  ‘The soldier?’

  The woman didn’t seem to understand the word. ‘Come.’

  Nancy staggered up the beach, leaning on her rescuer. Or was the woman leading her to the Japanese, to a firing squad?

  The trees were replaced by grass, shoulder high, that cut her arm when she brushed it. Its dried ribbons cut her bare feet, too soft after a year in shoes. Hers must have come off in the sea. The world whirled.

  ‘Come, mem.’

  On, through the grass. Palm trees and red soil, and then darker green, one massive tree, its multiple trunks defying the sea wind.

  The woman stopped, and slowly helped her sit on the ground, undid the life jacket and eased it over her shoulders.

  ‘Mem, stay. Stay!’

  Like a dog, thought Nancy. She nodded. There were things she had to do … she was not sure what but there were things. But she would think about those later.

  She shut her eyes. This time it was true sleep, fuelled by the coconut water. The sun was high when she opened them again, and a hand was brushing a dark green paste against her side.

  ‘That hurts!’

  The woman stopped.

  Nancy looked down, winced, then drew the woman’s hand back. ‘Thank you. Please, keep doing it. Thank you.’

  The woman nodded. More of the paste, then leaves, held on with twisted grass, plaited in some way so it wasn’t sharp. The woman reached down and brought up a coconut-shell bowl.

  Water.

  She drank, and felt her head clear slightly. The woman offered her another bowl. Nancy sniffed it, felt her stomach lunge, lifted it anyway and sipped. It seemed to be fish soup, milky in some way, heavily spiced, with many chopped greens. She wondered if it was medicinal, or simply all the woman had.

  She put the bowl down. ‘Thank you. What is this place called?’ Perhaps she’d remember the name from Ben’s map.

  The woman looked nervous. Had she understood?

  Nancy pointed to the soil. ‘Here? Called?’

  ‘Pulau Ayu.’

  Was it the island’s name? Or the word for ‘earth’? Or even the woman’s name? Nancy tried another tack. ‘Have you seen any other mems? Mem and a little boy?’ She sketched Gavin’s height in the air.

  The woman looked at her, her expression now half wary, half concerned.

  ‘This mem was in the water. Like me. The sea.’ Nancy pointed towards it. ‘Not … not on the beach. That beach.’ How much English did the woman understand? If only she had tried to learn Malay while she had been staying on the plantation.

  The woman’s voice was soft. ‘Mem stay? Yes?’

  ‘Yes. I will stay here.’

  Her mind was clearer now. She watched the woman
vanish into the shadows of the trees. She should find Moira. If she had made it to the island, Moira and Gavin could have too. Or had they been shot?

  Five bodies on the beach, what might have been a crate. Five women kicking together might have got here before her. She had heard no shots. Had the soldier stabbed them with a bayonet, one by one, as they crawled from the waves in the darkness?

  They should be buried before the vultures found them, or the crabs or whatever bird or animal scavenged around these parts. Or had the tide already carried them away? She tried to think where they had lain in the sand. All at low-water mark, she thought, yes, they would be gone now, drifting with the tides. Her eyes pricked at the thought of their bodies, forever homeless, then she realised she was too dehydrated to cry.

  Was this the island they’d seen from the ship? Or had she drifted somewhere else in the night? If it was the one Moira had pointed out, how big was it? It had looked long, from the ship, but perhaps it was long and narrow. Or even wider than it was long. Were there villages, plantations?

  More importantly, how many Japanese were here? Had the soldier on the beach been a scout from a small group, like the ones she had seen the second night of the invasion, or from a larger force? Were the Japanese in control here yet?

  The woman would know. She’d ask when she came back. If she came back. She’d ask if there were villages, other beaches where Moira and Gavin might have come ashore. Please, she thought, let them be safe. Not smashed on rocks or eaten by sharks. Not cold and floating in the water. You can’t do that to Gavin! Please let Ben be safe too. She paused and added, please, let Gran know that I am alive. And Michael. Make Gran convince Mum and Dad I’m safe. Amen.

  She wasn’t sure why Gran might know, or Michael either. Just that Gran sometimes did know some things that it would seem that she couldn’t really know about. Like the day she had arrived back from Charters Towers a week before she was due, and there was Gran with the roast dinner ready, and her favourite apple crumble.

  Michael … Had she imagined how much he understood, that linking without words?

  Her brain faded in and out. Michael and gum leaves. She had lost the gum leaf with the rest of her possessions. Would she lose Michael too? Would he think she had drowned, get engaged to someone else …? What was that poem Mum used to recite, about the sailor who comes home after being shipwrecked and on a desert island for ten years when everyone thought he was dead? The sailor looked through the window and saw his wife happy with another husband, and another’s child. The sailor had slipped away, leaving her to her new life … ‘Enoch Arden’, that was it.