To Love a Sunburnt Country

by Jackie French

  ‘Why don’t you take this bloke in yourselves?’

  ‘We could try to parachute him in, but that’d be like sending a great white flag saying, “Look over here,” to every enemy within a hundred miles. Our craft are too big to land up there anyway. There’s about fifty-two yards of jungle clearing. The only craft I know can do that is yours. It needs someone who can fly close to the tree line, in the edge of the clouds if she can.’

  Flying in cloud in country like that meant risking a mountain meeting you head on. And Johnno knew it.

  ‘You make it sound so tempting.’

  He grinned. ‘That’s my girl.’

  ‘Not yours, and not a girl.’

  ‘Yes. Well. One day we need to talk about that.’

  ‘Nothing to talk about. Can you really see me as a dear little wifey in an apron?’

  He smiled. ‘Has it ever occurred to you that if I wanted a dear little wifey in an apron, I wouldn’t want you? Have I ever given you an apron? Or a bunch of roses?’

  ‘The only thing you’ve ever given me was an adjustable shifting spanner that time in Turkey, and even then you wanted it back.’

  ‘Not true. I’ve given you something else now — a chance to risk your neck.’

  She looked at him. It was a strange way to say, ‘I love you.’ More, perhaps, a way to say, ‘I know you, I accept you, and love you enough to let you risk your life.’

  Women were expected to wave goodbye with brave smiles when men risked their lives for their country. But a man who’d not just let his wife go into danger, but offer her the way …

  ‘Come to dinner when I get back,’ she said suddenly. ‘A nice tough steak and boiled pumpkin greens. We can talk about it then. Can you wangle a few days’ leave?’

  ‘If you can pull this off, I reckon they’ll owe me a few days’ leave.’ All joking had left his eyes now. ‘You’ll do it?’

  ‘What, fly your mission or marry you?’

  ‘Either. Or both.’

  ‘I’ll fly your mission,’ she said slowly. ‘And then we’ll talk about marriage. Really talk. I mean it.’

  ‘Can’t we talk about it now? We could start up a transport company, you and me after the war. Fly freight across Australia. No aprons involved, or not on you.’

  She liked the sound of it. They might even make a go of it, both the company and the marriage. ‘In a hurry, aren’t you?’

  ‘This is war, my love,’ he said lightly. ‘You might not come back. Or I might not, if the Japs have better aim tonight.’ There was no laughter in his eyes at all now. ‘Give me a few hours at least when I can dream.’

  ‘All right.’

  He stared at her. ‘You mean you will?’

  ‘I said all right.’

  ‘That has to be the most unromantic response in the history of marriage proposals.’

  ‘If you wanted romance, you should have gone down on one knee. And brought me the roses.’

  ‘Would you have said yes if I’d gone down on one knee?’

  ‘Probably not. But I wouldn’t mind the roses.’

  ‘Roses are a bit in short supply up here.’

  ‘Fair enough. But I’m warning you: you bring one apron into this marriage and you’ll be the one wearing it.’

  ‘You can give me one for a wedding present. You … you won’t change your mind?’

  ‘No.’ Ten minutes ago she had liked him, more than liked him, known he was her best friend, a mate. And now … Could you fall in love in ten minutes, all because he’d given you back your wings?

  No. But you could because you had found out how deeply he understood you needed them. And she’d always known if she’d ever said yes to Johnno, there’d be no going back. Twenty thousand feet and a hundred-mile-an-hour wind behind her, gusting a bit, but true.

  ‘Kiss me, you fool,’ she quoted.

  ‘Kissing’s allowed now?’

  ‘I reckon so. You can even say you love me, if you like.’

  ‘I love you.’

  ‘Love you too.’

  They grinned at each other foolishly. He bent towards her.

  ‘Tea,’ said Marg, plonking down the tray. She looked at Kirsty, then at Johnno. ‘Not interrupting anything, am I?’

  Johnno drove the boy to Fairhills before the dawn — for he was still more boy than man, at twenty years old at most, with a pimple on his chin and round shoulders, not the warrior she’d been expecting.

  All the better, she thought. More weight meant more fuel used. And they’d need to conserve all the fuel that they could in case there was a storm and she needed to detour, or if the map was wrong and the mountains were higher than expected so they had to go around, or they had to fly into a headwind — that used up fuel like a steer gulping water on a hot day.

  Johnno swept his long legs out of the jeep, and kissed her, not a romantic kiss so much as a ‘Hello, world, this is the woman I am going to marry’ kiss. She accepted the declaration, enjoyed the kiss.

  ‘This is Brownie. Brownie, this is my fiancée, Kirsty McAlpine.’

  ‘Pleased to meet you, Miss McAlpine.’

  ‘Call me Kirsty.’ The boy wore khaki trousers, a khaki shirt, and carried a kit bag not much bigger than a lunch box over one shoulder, a Tommy gun and a knife shoved in his belt and a rifle over the other shoulder. He didn’t look like he could use any of it.

  Was Brownie his real name? Or a nickname in case they crash-landed and survived, or she was captured but he escaped — so she couldn’t tell the enemy what she didn’t know?

  ‘All ready to go?’ Johnno asked.

  She nodded. They’d been over Swaggie a dozen times. They’d even taken her for a test flight about the property, scaring the steers so they ran towards the river. Might be a good way to round up stock after the war, she’d thought. Much quicker and more fun than in the saddle.

  ‘I brought you something.’ He reached into the glovebox and handed her a rose.

  It was just a bud, short-stemmed and very slightly wilted. But she could smell its scent when she lifted it to her nose. ‘Where the heck did you get this?’

  He grinned, proud of himself. Worried too: she could see that in his eyes. ‘Mate flew up from Brizzie yesterday. I put in a special order.’

  She stood on tiptoes and kissed him again, swiftly, because the boy was looking, because there wasn’t much time, not if she was going to get there and back in daylight — the only lit landing strip was at the base and she had a feeling they would not be happy if she tried to use it.

  ‘I’d offer you a cup of tea. But we’d better make the most of the daylight.’

  She put the rose in the top buttonhole of her jacket, hoping the wind would be kind to it, and led Johnno and the boy behind the shed. If the boy was shocked by the tiny, tinny-looking craft, he didn’t show it. ‘Do I sit in the front, or back?’

  ‘Front. It has twin controls, but you won’t need to use yours.’ Unless they shoot me, she thought. But I don’t have time to show you how to bring the plane down yourself if that happens. ‘I won’t be able to hear you, so you’ll need to signal where to go. Like motorcar signals. Hand up to stop. Right hand out to go right, left to go left. Down for down.’

  ‘And up for up?’

  ‘I’ll know about the up bit. She’s a tougher craft than she looks,’ she added.

  He nodded, either because he accepted her word or because there was no choice but to accept it.

  He’s accepted death is a possibility too, she thought. For surely he must know he had little chance of surviving this expedition if any tiny thing went wrong. He might send signals for weeks, or months perhaps. But one day, unless the Allies pushed the Japanese out soon, they’d track down those signals and find him. She supposed once you had accepted that, then death in a small plane was a minor thing, a nuisance that meant you could not complete your mission — or even begin it. Though death was the final arbiter of every mission, in the end.

  He said, ‘I hope we find your friend.’
/>   ‘Thank you. I hope … I hope your mission goes well.’

  He smiled at that. ‘Dad was an actual missionary. He wanted me to be one too. Seems right to hear you call it a mission now.’

  ‘Was?’

  ‘He died.’

  ‘I’m so sorry. When?’

  ‘Don’t know. We don’t really know he’s dead, for that matter. But he stopped transmitting more than a year ago.’

  One of the ones who stayed, Kirsty realised. ‘You must be proud of him. Australia would be proud of him, if they knew … if they were allowed to know.’

  ‘He did the right thing,’ said the young man who called himself Brownie. ‘That’s what would matter to him.’

  ‘We’d better get going.’ She showed him how to get up, to strap himself in, and helped him with his helmet.

  ‘Good luck,’ said Johnno quietly. ‘Come back safely.’ He hesitated. ‘Haven’t even got you an engagement ring yet. Or don’t you want one?’

  ‘You’re not getting out of it that cheaply, mister. I want a sapphire. Might even wear a dress when you put it on me too.’

  ‘A sapphire it is then. And I’ll be waiting for that dress.’

  She’d loved dresses once, in the days before she’d had to prove herself ten times better than a man to be allowed to fly at all. She realised that after doing something this insane she could wear all the pretty dresses she liked and no one would question her qualifications.

  She had a feeling that Johnno might like that too.

  She fastened her own helmet, tied a scarf around her neck and secured it safely, belted herself in. Normally she’d have turned the propeller herself, but this time Johnno did it for her. Nothing happened. The engine caught the second time.

  Johnno gave her the thumbs up. She returned the gesture, then blew him a kiss. Swaggie ran lightly across the stony ground, then leapt towards the sky.

  We are beating the sun up, she thought, the old excitement thudding in her. Up into the greyness, the horizon not even flushed with the coming dawn. Feeling the cold bite of air, the taste of warm air currents where the eagles flew.

  This is my world, she thought. Not with eagle wings, but with an engine beating like my heart.

  The day lightened about them as they flew. She had forgotten the sheer speed of flight. It was green below them, the dry land still soaking up wet, and then the sudden shock of blue. Rich blue sea here in the north, sea that almost glowed, edged with green, the too-white sand.

  Islands, white-fringed, rock-fingered, grey-brown or green; more sand, then more sea …

  Cold air. Fresh air, no smell of steers or hot grass. It was so good to have cold air in her lungs again. I am a mountain girl, she thought. No: I belong to the sky.

  She glanced at the compass, but was reasonably sure still where they were, where they were meant to be. Yes, there was the promontory just like on the map. There was the wide beach like a smile. A hill, shaggy with grass, the sea again. And then the land. Sand and grass then jungle, rising swiftly, looking more black than green.

  And no one had shot at them yet, neither enemy nor ally. Johnno had been as good as his words. This route was as safe as it was possible to make it.

  She kept low, skimming the trees, then turned towards the east, drove at the sun, half blind, her goggles half shielding her from the glare. And there was the mountain range.

  My word, she thought, that’s not a mountain, it’s a wall. What her mind had known her imagination hadn’t seen. It was like a green wall that just went up and up, vanishing into white so it might keep rising up forever.

  A hand came out in front of her, pointing left. And, yes, there was the gap, like a pulled tooth, cliffs among the green. She flew under the cloud, then into it, flying almost blind, visibility measured in yards, at most, as slow as she could make it. A second the fraction in the wrong direction could kill them now.

  She hoped he didn’t know it.

  The mist thickened. For a moment she thought they’d have to pull out of the cloud, go back, and then, miraculously, it lifted, like a hand had picked up a tablecloth or twitched aside a curtain. She had only a second to correct their flight: she shot away from a waterfall, a thin trickle down the rock, wondered if it was indeed a miracle, if the man in front of her had prayed, because if the fog hadn’t lifted they would be scattered in wreckage at the bottom of the cliff by now, brief flames among the green.

  The chasm curved; she swerved with it.

  Then they were out. Another slope to their left again. He pointed right, then suddenly his hand went up in a ‘stop’ sign. He pointed down.

  She saw it. A pale green slash among the darker green, with what looked like bananas at the far end. The strip was as long as a cricket pitch perhaps.

  There was a difference, she realised, between landing in fifty-two yards on a wide oval, and having only fifty-two yards to land in before you crashed into trees or a cliff. But if she could do the one, she could do the other.

  And take off again. She hoped.

  Down. Down. I am a bird, she thought. I am the heron, I am the eagle, I am the seagull landing on the soft green sea. The plane bumped once, almost clipping the bananas, rolled then stopped.

  The clearing was empty.

  Had they come to the right place?

  She lifted her helmet off. The air hit her like a fist, humid and cold at the same time. She climbed stiffly out onto the wing and jumped down. He followed her, shivering. I should have warned him to put on three pairs of thermals, she thought. ‘What now?’

  ‘They’ll have seen us if they’re still here. We wait.’

  Kirsty wondered who else might have seen them. There had been no sign of humanity below them. But there must be villages in under the canopy; could be the entire Japanese Army, for all she knew, invisible beneath the thick cover of trees.

  She’d give her right-hand propeller for a cup of tea and a cheese sandwich. Well, maybe not a propeller, given the circumstances, but her sugar ration for the next month.

  Something moved in the shadows of the trees. Two men emerged. One was dark-skinned, and bare-chested despite the cold, with a pair of ragged shorts and frizzy black hair. He supported another man, one leg wrapped in bloody rags, the other smudged with blood and mud under a pair of shorts as ragged as his companion’s. His skin had once been white. Now his face was clay; clay-daubed, deliberately she thought, not the kind of dirt from sliding down a mountain.

  The black-skinned man said something softly. The other nodded. The black-skinned man slipped back into the shadows of the trees.

  The other limped forwards. He was dressed in what had been army uniform, though what he mostly wore was mud. Under the clay his face had the pallor of pain, illness and exhaustion. ‘Adam Ansover?’ The voice was breathless too.

  ‘Brownie’ glanced at Kirsty, shrugged. ‘That’s me. I’m supposed to meet the Reverend McPherson.’

  ‘I’m sorry. We haven’t had a chance to call in. He died three days ago. No, not the Japs. Malaria, I think. His boys buried him. Marked the grave too. You’ve got the radio?’

  Brownie — Adam Ansover — tapped his swag.

  ‘Good. The reverend’s is on its last legs. The boys are waiting for you. There’s a cave —’ He stopped as Brownie indicated Kirsty. The man blinked. ‘You’re a woman.’

  ‘Last time I looked,’ said Kirsty.

  ‘I didn’t know a woman could fly.’ His voice was strangely flat, all emotion worn away.

  ‘You and the entire air force or most of it.’ She knew the near miracle of flying she’d done today. Not just the luck of the fog lifting when it had, but matching the plane with the wind, manoeuvring among the clouds. She hoped she didn’t spoil her good impression by crashing on the way back.

  She glanced up at the sun, automatically checking the time by that, rather than her watch. You could forget to reset a watch as you crossed time zones, but the sun never let you down. ‘I need to get back. Where’s Miss Overflow? How is she? Th
e message said she’d been shot.’

  He stared at her, almost too tired to take her words in. He shook his head. ‘I’m sorry. When I said “shot” I meant she’d been killed. They threw her body in the water.’ Still no emotion in that tired voice. ‘Her husband died two nights later. Grief as well as illness, I expect.’

  ‘Her husband? Nancy is — was — is — seventeen. No, eighteen.’

  ‘You must be thinking of someone else. Mrs Overflow is … was in her forties. Good woman.’ Again, the flat voice. ‘She was Reverend McPherson’s sister. Most of the wives evacuated back in ’41. She stayed put, and her husband too. Think that was how they could transmit for so long. Lots of folk respected them for that, staying with their flock.’

  ‘I … see.’ She felt curiously empty. All this for nothing. But she had known it was a long shot at best, hoping that a girl could find her way from island to island, evading capture both by the enemy and local men. And yet it had not been for nothing. For who knew what Brownie would report back, how many lives would be saved with the information he’d transmit.

  She was glad she hadn’t told anyone at home about this, raised hopes that would now be flattened. The man swayed, his fists clenching as though with the effort to stay upright. ‘Can you take a passenger?’

  ‘What? Yes. You?’

  He nodded.

  ‘What do you weigh?’

  ‘No idea. Used to weigh eleven stone six, but that was a year ago.’ He looked down at his leg. ‘I can cut this off now rather than wait for them to do it in Darwin if that would help.’

  She felt sick; tried not to show it. ‘We’ll be right.’ Even if they couldn’t make it back to Fairhills, Swaggie was amphibious. She could land on a river if need be, though the sea would be better, near a nice calm beach. And with no crocodiles or sea snakes. And a chauffeur to meet us with cheese sandwiches and a tea urn, she thought, while I’m putting wishes in.

  The man said evenly, ‘I’ll be back if … when they’ve patched up my leg. Or given me another one. In the meantime I can make a map of where the others need to go. Fifteen men with Tommy guns could stop the enemy from crossing this range, if we could get them in here, and if they knew where to go.’