To Love a Sunburnt Country

by Jackie French

  Moira held up something — it was small, almost blue-white. ‘An egg.’

  ‘It must have blown down from a nest.’

  ‘Not hard-boiled it didn’t. Look.’

  Nancy looked. In the fork of nearly every bush was a tiny egg, the kind laid by the local hens. Someone — perhaps many someones and not just the person who left the food packages — must have watched her pick buds here, at the same time every day; have put these eggs here for her to find before they could go bad in the heat. She gathered them quickly, sticking them down her blouse before the translator saw. But he had caught a crab between two sticks and was holding it up for Gavin to see.

  So many eggs. Twenty, twenty-two … it would be a feast. It had been more than a month since they’d had an egg, and that was just one shared between them all.

  This was more than kindness, she thought. The local people would be punished, beaten, perhaps even killed if the guards discovered they had helped the prisoners. But still the parcels came, and now the eggs. Maybe several people had pooled their eggs to give to the prisoners, hard-boiling them to keep them from going bad …

  Something moved out on the sea. She covered her eyes, to shield them from the glare. It was a native fishing boat, the triangular sail catching the wind.

  A boat … and the three of them outside the camp, with only the translator to guard them. And local people willing to help …

  She had abandoned any thought of escape not long after they were first imprisoned. But now she knew there were people who might help them. Now Gavin was older. Now the guards trusted her enough to go beyond the compound, and Moira and Gavin too. The three of them could vanish. Moira still had her pearls to trade …

  Excitement rose like the giant wave the translator had talked about. Not today, she thought. We can’t escape today. We have to plan, to gather stores. Ask Mrs Hughendorn to write a note to leave in the bushes. Make sure a fisherman will help us get off the island, to another without Japanese guards, where we might sail to another island, and another …

  Perhaps they could all go …

  The sun shone brightly against the blue. The whole world seemed brighter. Escape, thought Nancy. We can do it. Leave the compound. Leave the island. Leave the Japanese behind. And one day, across the islands, get back home to Overflow.

  She looked across the sea again.

  Escape …

  Chapter 44

  Gibber’s Creek Gazette, 20 March 1944

  Farmers Urged to Produce Charcoal for Victory

  With fuel supplies needed for the war effort, all farmers are being urged to turn wood into charcoal. The only equipment needed is a large pit and …

  FAIRHILLS STATION, NORTHERN TERRITORY, AUSTRALIA, 20 MARCH 1944

  KIRSTY

  She wasn’t going to knit. Or join a RAAF typing pool.

  Kirsty McAlpine rubbed the sweat from her forehead, narrowly avoiding knocking an eye out with the pliers she still had in her hand. Clouds piled up on the horizon; clouds that refused to rain, as though they were waiting for someone to say, ‘The wet season hasn’t finished. Time to rain!’ and fire a starting pistol. She eyed a buzzard, lazily circling her, and made a face. ‘Buzz off,’ she told it. ‘And no need to be so smug. I can outfly you any day.’

  Except she couldn’t. The Swaggie sat in the Fairhills shed, with the last of the cans of gas. This was as far as she’d got, back from Europe after winning the Zurich to Milan air race, and in record time too. She’d barn-stormed her way back, stopping wherever there was a chance to buy gas and a flat place big enough to land — which for the Swaggie was an incredible hundred and fifty-four feet, the shortest runway required by any competitor. She was light too, just over a thousand pounds, eighty-horsepower motor, two-blade tractor propeller, maximum speed ninety-six miles per hour, or better with a tail wind, stall speed a fabulous thirty-four miles per hour — she could balance her craft in a breeze and she would stay up like a cloud. Plywood skin, wooden frame, steel twine struts braced with piano wire. Best of all, she was light on fuel: one tank would take her a thousand miles, depending on wind and altitude and weight carried, which in her case was eight stone twelve pounds, measured exactly so she’d know whether she could get over the Alps in safety.

  She’d been flying solo by then. Johnno had wanted to get married after the Dover to Paris race. But marriage meant children, cooking dinner, sitting at home while your husband challenged the eagles. And no matter how much Johnno protested, that’s what’d happen, just as it had to Flinty back at Rock Farm.

  Not that Flinty minded. Rock Farm and her family were her life, interspersed with the novels that brought in enough to keep the family prosperous and, if Kirsty was honest, keep her in the air, because the prize money from the air races only went so far, and that wasn’t to Dover or even the Giro Aereo D’Italia.

  Flinty was a good sort; hadn’t kicked up a ruckus when she’d learnt that Kirsty had been flying, not studying Arts like a good girl at Sydney Uni.

  If she’d known that the RAAF was going to put its collective head in the sand like an ostrich, she’d have stayed in Britain. At least there women could fly aircraft from the factory to the bases, even fly cargo, although they weren’t allowed on combat missions. But here — ha! All the RAAF wanted its women members to do was type. Or chauffeur officers in cars. Let anyone with a bosom get within sneezing distance of an aircraft and the RAAF had pink kittens.

  She could fly rings around them. And under and over them too, like she’d flown under the Sydney Harbour Bridge that longago night for a dare. But no matter how many air miles, or wins, or air-mile lines across the world map she could show them, flying was lost to her for the duration.

  Sometimes she felt that she’d rather lose her arms than her wings.

  She’d landed here two months after war with Germany had been declared. Gas was already in short supply and going to Rock Farm, even if she’d been able to find the fuel, seemed suddenly less attractive. She’d be back to being younger sister Kirsty, peeling potatoes, planting potatoes, knitting socks on the veranda with Flinty …

  No, she was not going to knit.

  So she knocked on the homestead door and got a job. They were easy enough to come by, what with all the station hands galloping off to Darwin to sign up. There were worse places to spend the war than this. Admittedly the heat struck you like a fist at seven am, and if she had to stare at one more steer’s backside she’d scream. Breakfast, lunch and dinner were a tough steak with an egg on top if you were lucky, and boiled greens that she’d been careful not to ask Cookie to identify. But she could do the work with one hand tied behind her back. All right, not without both hands, not fencing, mile after mile of it; nor building stockyards for the yearly muster or shelters for the bulls so the bally animals didn’t get sunburnt. Crikey, if only they’d farm roos in this country instead of bally cattle …

  Even Greta was tired on the way back to the homestead. Kirsty brushed the flies from her eyes as they turned the last bend in the track. The heat built up each day, not so much hotter as heavier, as if eventually the air might crush you to the ground. No wonder the poor southern bulls needed shelter.

  A jeep sat in the sun by the veranda. All at once the weariness left her. Johnno! She urged Greta to a reproachful canter around the back, unsaddled her and watered her, then let her into the house paddock. She climbed the kitchen steps. But the kitchen was empty. ‘Cooee! Where are you all?’

  ‘In here.’ It was Marg’s voice.

  Kirsty pulled off her boots and padded down the corridor. ‘What do you want to take this great mug into the living room for? Kitchen’s good enough for him.’ She lifted her cheek for a kiss.

  Johnno smelt of salt and wilted starch from his uniform. He was tall, but skinny as a post-and-rail fence, which had been good in his flying days — less weight meant less fuel and more speed.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me you were getting leave, you great galoot? We’d have killed the fatted calf. Or at l
east shoved another buzzard in the stew. How can they manage the war without you?’

  ‘Left instructions. Can’t stay — I have to drive back tonight.’

  ‘What? You won’t get back till the small hours. Probably get lost on the way.’

  ‘Nah. Keep my back to the sunset and follow the searchlights to the base.’

  Sudden panic hit her. ‘You’ve heard something about Joey?’

  ‘No, I’m sorry.’ His voice was gentle.

  ‘There’s nothing wrong at home? Flinty?’

  ‘Keep your hair on, darling. It’s nothing like that. This is work, not family.’

  She smiled in relief. ‘Just as long as you remember I’m not your darling.’ And not for want of trying, she thought. He’d kissed her once, after that win in Milan. Well, all right, she had kissed him too. The kiss had shaken her like a hundred-mile-an-hour headwind. She’d been careful not to repeat the experience. Too many kisses like that and who knew where she’d find herself? Or rather, she knew too well, and each scenario led to her marching up the aisle. Except ladies didn’t march. She wouldn’t even be allowed to wear boots under her wedding dress …

  Marg stood — tall, sun-streaked hair and skin toughened by three decades at Fairhills, managing it with her husband after her parents died and now with Kirsty since he’d joined up, though ‘managing’ a property up here meant both less and more than it did down south. There were few fences, except around the house, sheds and yards, and you had to bring in a new bull or six every few years and cull the older ones. The real work was rounding them up over a thousand square miles, then droving them to Darwin. ‘I’ll get fresh tea. Johnno has something he needs to tell you.’

  ‘Yeah, he’s been trying to tell me that for five years.’ She looked at him with affection. ‘And I’m not buying it.’

  ‘I think you need to hear this,’ said Marg quietly. She left to get the tea, which would not be a fresh brew, but this week’s ration stewed for the fifth time, last week’s bread, no butter, tough meat sliced thin enough to chew it.

  Kirsty sat down, and put her feet on the table. ‘I’m done in. All right for you in your nice office with your fan.’ Ten years of flying and the RAAF had stuck Johnno in a Darwin office, which was the RAAF all over, just because he had a heart murmur. Couldn’t send a man out to die unless he’s a hundred per cent fit.

  But she was glad. Glad that Johnno was safe, or as safe as you could be with Jap bombers overhead, even though their raids on Darwin and Broome barely made the newspapers. Glad, in a way, that she needn’t be jealous of him, up in the sky while she was stuck here, looking at cattle bums.

  ‘Wish I’d never told you about that fan.’ Johnno looked at her steadily.

  ‘All right, what is this you need to say to me?’

  ‘Can you keep it quiet? I’d probably be court-martialled if anyone knew I’d told you this.’

  ‘Who am I likely to tell? The goannas?’ She looked at him more closely. ‘You’re absolutely serious about this, aren’t you?’

  He nodded. ‘I’ve never really told you what my work is.’

  ‘Paper shuffling,’ she quoted promptly.

  ‘It’s what’s on the paper that matters. I … coordinate reports, from all across the Top End. Some from the north too.’

  ‘Papua? New Guinea?’

  He didn’t answer. ‘Ham-radio operators mostly. They can warn us that Jap planes are coming in. Some are up on mountains with good visibility to look out for ships. And sometimes … other things.’

  She nodded, aware that there was much he wasn’t telling her, and she was careful not to ask for more. Was the real reason he was at a desk not a heart murmur? Perhaps there wasn’t anything wrong with his heart at all, but he’d been chosen because he’d flown over this country, knew it from the air in the way it would take someone a lifetime to know it from the ground. He had dropped in — sometimes almost literally — on villages all over Papua, New Guinea and northern Australia.

  ‘You want us to watch here?’ She shrugged. ‘If we ever see a Jap, I’ll let you know.’

  ‘No. That’s not why I came. Kirsty, a report came in yesterday. And this is the top-secret part, because if word got out we were even getting a message from this area, it might mean the death of the bloke who sent it.’

  She took her feet off the table, nodded. ‘I’m listening.’

  ‘He’s a padre. Church of England. Good bloke. When the Japs invaded Papua most of the Anglican missionaries chose to stay with their flocks. They said that their church expected it, that Jesus would have expected it, that their own consciences said they must do it — not abandon the members of their church as the enemy approached. So they stayed.’

  The simple story touched her so much it was hard to ask, ‘Are they still alive?’

  ‘Some of them. Had to leave their churches, of course. Go into the jungle. Their mission people, those they’d converted to Christianity, protected them, mostly at any rate. Others went over to the Japanese. When that happened …’ He shrugged. ‘Well, the missionaries didn’t live long after that. Sometimes it was a native axe. Sometimes the head was brought to the Japanese for the reward. But the bloke I’m telling you about, he’s still there.’

  ‘And he’s one of your watchers.’

  He nodded. ‘He says there’s nothing in the Bible against sending information to those who can do good with it. He’s got a radio. He’s given us some good stuff. But yesterday …’ He searched for words. ‘Reception’s bad most of the time. He can’t say much either — the longer he broadcasts, the more likely it is that the Japs will pick up his signal and work out where it’s coming from. He has to keep moving. So all I can tell you is what he told us yesterday. “Mrs Overflow shot last Wednesday.”’

  She sat frozen on the couch. Nancy of the Overflow, the laughing girl of so many Christmas picnics. Missing for two years, presumed dead, but only because her body hadn’t been picked up from the sea.

  What if she’d survived? Not just survived, but managed to get to Papua?

  It wasn’t impossible. Neither she nor Nancy’s family had been told where the ship had been when it went down. Maybe it had been closer to Papua than Singapore. If men could escape after the fall of Singapore, wangle their way onto boats to get across the Straits and bush-bash their way across country, then Nancy could do it too. Of all the people who might be able to get to Papua, she’d put the girl she knew towards the top.

  ‘Mrs Overflow?’

  ‘It might have been “Miss”. As I said, the reception wasn’t good.’

  ‘Not Nancy?’

  ‘No. Just what I told you. Nothing but that. But we don’t have any record of a woman called Mrs Overflow in the area.’

  And Nancy, she realised, shot, delirious perhaps, might well have whispered, ‘Nancy of the Overflow,’ instead of her real name.

  ‘Where is she? Yes,’ she added impatiently, ‘I will keep it secret. And if you’re not going to tell me, why do you have a map in your hip pocket?’

  He drew it out, spread it on the table. ‘There.’

  About a hundred miles from the coast. High country. She had a memory of dark green mountain ranges, a sea of trees below her, cliffs that reared nearly vertically from river valleys below, mountainsides swimming in clouds as thick as snow and just as deadly, ready to sink on you in swirling clouds that were blindingly thick one moment and vanished the next.

  ‘You have to get her out. Where are the Allied forces now?’

  ‘I can’t tell you that.’

  ‘Can’t, or won’t?’

  ‘Won’t. But I can tell you there are none of our forces near enough to get there. And even if they could,’ he looked at her again, ‘it would take weeks to get her out of there on foot.’

  ‘Not worth it. She’d be dead,’ said Kirsty flatly.

  ‘You can’t redirect the war for one girl,’ he said softly.

  ‘No. Johnno, I’m sorry. Of course you can’t. You or anybody else.’ She sat
back. ‘Why did you tell me?’

  ‘You told me about the Overflow girl, how much she means to everyone …’

  ‘I don’t mean that.’ She fought down what might have been tears, a blooming great lump in her throat. That poor girl, a stranger in strange hands, dying, so far from home. ‘If there’s no way to help her, why tell me? I can’t tell her family this. That she might possibly be alive, possibly somewhere deep in Papua but possibly dying too, and there’s nothing we can do.’

  ‘Nothing I can do. Nor the army or the RAAF.’

  The way he said it implied that someone else might. ‘I don’t understand.’

  He took a deep breath. ‘We need to get someone up there. Someone who knows the country, someone who’s younger than the bloke who’s there now. Someone to report on … well, that doesn’t matter. Or rather it does matter, but it’s on a need-toknow basis. If someone were to fly up there — unofficially — carrying a passenger, then bring one back but not necessarily the same person … Well, unofficially — totally unofficially and we’d deny it if you had to land or were captured, if anyone heard about it at all. But strictly hypothetically, we could make sure that no one from our side at least intercepted you. The bloke you’d be taking up there could tell you where to go. We could give you weather forecasts, though you know as well as I do how much they’re worth — conditions up there can change in minutes.’

  ‘You’d help me to fly up there?’

  ‘Yes. Get you whatever fuel you need. I can even help you check Swaggie over.’

  And he was a damn good bush mechanic too. As good as she was. ‘Because you need someone dropped off?’

  ‘And to rescue a girl — or a woman, if it isn’t the girl you know. Yes.’ He met her eyes. ‘You wanted to fly, my dear. I’m giving you back your wings.’

  ‘Unofficially?’

  ‘Totally unofficially. You need to understand that if you’re taken, we can’t protect you. Can’t even acknowledge you. You might be shot for a spy. You might be shot for no reason other than that you are white and you are there. You might be met by a pack of blokes waiting to hand you in for a reward, or just hand in your head.’