by Sue Lawson
‘Dad said that one is rare. That’s why he wrapped it in plastic.’
I frowned. ‘I don’t get why.’
‘Because it’s rare.’
‘Not the plastic. Why are you doing this?’
Hands shoved in his pockets, Neanderthal shifted his weight from one foot to the other.
‘Dad said there’s no rush, look after them.’
I watched him lope to the boys’ locker room. ‘Hey, Ne—Nathan. Thanks.’
Without turning around, he waved.
Chapter Thirty-five
‘Who’s that?’ asked Ava, peering out the window.
‘Let’s see.’ Bailey elbowed her aside. ‘Ahh, manila folder under her arm and two novels in the basket. A substitute teacher for sure.’
‘Cool,’ said Dylan, rubbing his hands together. ‘Let the games begin.’
The woman stalked to the teacher’s desk. She glanced around the room as she gathered her black hair behind her head and shoved a biro through it to hold it in place.
‘Is that a skirt or a curtain?’ said Sarah.
Harmony and Toni sniggered.
The woman smiled and opened the manila folder. ‘Skirt. Crushed velvet. Lovely isn’t it? You must be Sarah Rinaldi.’
Sarah’s face flushed red.
Dylan slumped in his seat. ‘Okay, so the games might be on hold.’
‘My name is Miss Harmer. Ms Broadkin is ill, so I’ll be taking you for home room and English straight afterwards. You’re to work on your book study. On. Your. Own.’
‘What if you’ve finished, Miss?’ asked Sarah, her voice like fairy floss.
‘Then Sarah, you work on something else. But you will work on your own and quietly.’
‘Great,’ groaned Bailey.
‘Suits me.’ I stuck my hand in the air. ‘Miss, can I grab books from my locker, please?’
‘Anyone else who needs to collect material may do so now. You have five minutes.’
Laura came with me. ‘What did The Newt say?’
‘I have to go back and see him in a few days.’ I swept my hair back from my face. ‘Loz, Neanderthal gave me books this morning.’
Laura jerked to face me, eyes wide. ‘What sort of books?’
‘About Charlie. Well, about the ship.’
‘Neanderthal gave them to you?’
‘Uh huh.’
‘Of his own free will.’
‘Apparently.’
‘They’ll be booby-trapped, for sure.’
‘I’ve already checked.’ I pulled the stack from my locker and handed it to Laura. ‘I can’t find anything.’
Laura flipped through the pile. ‘Look fine to me.’ She grinned. ‘Mum’s right. He thinks you’re hot.’
I gagged and pretended to collapse against my locker.
‘Come on, drama queen. The Curtain will be waiting.’
Miss Harmer paced the aisles, tapping tables with her finger if anyone even looked like talking. At first, the silence and the swishing of her skirt made concentrating tough. But it wasn’t long until I was lost in the first of Neanderthal’s books, reading stuff about Lark Force, Rabaul and the Japanese invasion and about the Montevideo Maru. All of the facts and dates would have been great if I was still doing my project on Charlie, but seeing as I wasn’t, I read to learn more about Charlie’s fate. The new information pressed down on me.
I learnt that Lark Force wasn’t trained for tropical warfare and was issued with outdated weapons. They weren’t told the Japanese were about to invade. On the night of the invasion, the men were told they were going on an exercise. And as if it could get any worse, there were no plans made for them to meet after the exercise, so when the order ‘Every man for himself’ was given, the men scattered into the tropical jungle without food, blankets or even medicine, like quinine.
Page after page, in book after book told of a total stuff up.
The fate of Lark Force was sealed well before the invasion of Rabaul. Five days after the Japanese entered the war in the Pacific, the Australian Government, knowing the battalion would present little resistance against Japanese attack, decided to evacuate only European women and children from the Territories…
The troops were left in Rabaul…
Unbeknownst to the families and men, the Australian Government had declared the members of Lark Force to be regarded as ‘hostages to fortune’…
‘They left them there to die,’ I whispered.
‘Who did?’ asked Laura, leaning towards me.
‘The government.’ I flicked back a few pages. ‘See, the men’s guns sucked, they were trained to fight in the desert, not the tropics. They hadn’t been taught anything about survival techniques and when they took up positions before the invasion, they were told it was just a training exercise. Exercise my butt! They were about to face 5,000 enemy troops.’ It was hard to keep my voice low. ‘What hope did they have?’
Laura shifted in her seat.
‘And the government or army or whoever was in charge of that sort of stuff left them there. To die.’ I stared out the window. ‘The government knew thousands of Japanese were coming and they didn’t do a thing.’
‘Girls!’ snapped The Curtain. ‘No. Talking.’
‘Yes, Miss.’ I waited for her to swish away before continuing. ‘Rabaul became the Japanese headquarters for their attack on the South Pacific.’
‘I know. About 200,000 were based there,’ said Laura, twirling her pen. ‘Have you read about the tunnels?’
I shook my head.
‘They dug 500 kilometres of tunnels through the island. They were so huge, the Japanese set up hospitals in them.’
‘You sound impressed.’
Laura dropped her pen on her books. ‘Come on, Darce, that’s incredible.’
I checked on The Curtain. She towered over the Triplets, whisper-lecturing. I straightened my books and asked Laura a question I was dreading the answer to. ‘Loz, was your … did your great-grandfather fight in … was he…’
‘He didn’t join up until 1943.’
My breath rushed from me. ‘Charlie was already dead by then.’
Laura nodded. ‘I know. I was kind of worried that maybe…’
‘Is that why you know that stuff about Rabaul?’
Laura shrugged. ‘And to save you from a lifetime of lunches in the library, I looked it up and printed it at home. This morning you said you were changing topics so I didn’t bother giving it to you.’
A hand slapped my SOSE textbook. I squealed.
‘What part of NO TALKING did you not understand?’
The Curtain’s face was a spit from mine.
‘Sorry, Miss.’
‘Darcy’s a big talker,’ said Sarah, her face innocent. ‘Everything about her is large. Amazon size.’
The Curtain sucked in air through her teeth. She turned, in slow motion, to face Sarah. ‘You vacuous creature.’
Sarah clasped her hands and smiled. ‘I like to help, Ms Harmer.’
Laura elbowed me. I bit my lip to stop the laughter threatening to burst from me.
The Curtain shook her head. ‘Would anyone care to enlighten her?’
‘She called you an air-head, Rinaldi,’ said Dylan, triumph in his voice.
Sarah’s mouth dropped open. She slumped in her seat.
Laughter crashed through the room.
‘That will do.’ The Curtain’s glared until the laughter stopped. ‘Now, why are you two speaking?’
‘We’re discussing our project.’ I pointed to the books and pages sprawled across my desk.
‘SOSE, Miss,’ added Laura. ‘We all have to do it.’
‘It’s true, Miss.’
I turned to the voice so fast, my neck cracked. It was Neanderthal.
‘We’re doing projects about World War II,’ said Neanderthal, eyes on his open novel.
The Curtain looked from my notes to Laura’s. ‘Fine, but no more speaking.’
‘Yes, Miss,’ we chanted like wind-up dolls.
/> The Curtain glided across the room to The Triplets. I went back to reading about Rabaul and the Montevideo Maru.
It wasn’t the new details I was uncovering that surprised me, but the feelings each discovery sparked. Fury, horror, sorrow—all for a man I didn’t know.
The strongest feelings came when I read how the stuff ups continued after the men died.
Newspaper Reports Beat Telegrams
The Japanese didn’t make lists of prisoners of war available until after the war ended in 1945. When Australian authorities compared the POW lists to that of the missing, it became clear that over 5000 Australians were unaccounted for, including those captured in Rabaul.
The Australian army officer heading the investigation into the men’s fate searched records in the Tokyo POW Information Bureau. He discovered a list of 1056 names, servicemen and civilians, who were captured in Rabaul. The names had been translated from Japanese into English, making it difficult to ascertain a definitive list.
While the list was being finalised, the families waited for news, hoping their loved one would be amongst each new group of POWs returning to Australia.
The families’ hopes were dashed by a newspaper report in September 1945, a month before the official telegrams were sent. The article reported a prison ship carrying the missing men from Rabaul had been lost at sea, with no survivors.
The dates on Misery’s letters in the cubby suddenly made sense. Batty and Misery weren’t told of Charlie’s death until three years after he’d died. After Misery had written the letters.
How did Batty tell Misery, Alice and Art that Charlie had died? Did she show them the newspaper article? Take them to the beach? Or place the news on the dinner table, like a plate of vegetables to be eaten.
I shivered, pulling down the sleeves of my school jumper, before I continued reading.
The Families
The long silences and delays in official confirmation of the men’s death created suspicion amongst Lark Force families. Theories started to surface.
Did the prisoners board the Montevideo Maru?
Were they loaded onto the Montevideo Maru, killed and dumped at sea?
Were the men forced to dig their own graves before being massacred at Rabaul? Was the story that the ship was torpedoed by an American submarine, just that, a story to cover the reality of horrific and barbaric treatment?
The lack of witnesses, bodies or graves only made it worse for the surviving families. With no death certificates, difficulties arose with pensions, insurance, property ownership and remarriage.
The end result was the men’s deaths became such a painful and on-going experience, that the families found it too difficult to discuss.
Perhaps it is this silence, combined with the mystery surrounding the incident, that has resulted in such a large loss of life remaining relatively unknown by Australians.
The whole thing—insurance and death certificate problems, the families’ not discussing the men and stories of damaged families were repeated in other books.
It was like a light going on in a dark room. Misery and Batty’s silence wasn’t unusual. Other families did it too. My brain and body felt sodden and heavy.
Somewhere in the distance, the bell rang. I clawed myself back to reality, unable to shake the sensation of having stepped from a daytime movie into bright sunshine.
‘You may go,’ said The Curtain, gliding from the room.
Laura elbowed me. ‘Look out.’
Neanderthal, holding his folder on his hip, stood in front of the table. He nodded at his father’s papers and books. ‘Are they helping?’
‘Yeah, they are.’
He nodded again. ‘How about that conspiracy crap?’
‘Have you read it?’ I asked.
‘Dad told me about it.’
‘It’s kind of confronting,’ I said, my words slow.
‘Do you reckon they went down with the ship? Or did the Japs machine gun them?’
I glanced at Laura. ‘Japanese, Nathan. As for the ship, I don’t know what to think.’
He chewed the inside of his cheek.
‘No wonder your grannies are nuts, eh?’
Heat surged through me. ‘Who says they’re nuts?’
‘Dah. Only the whole town.’
The whole town? I leant against the desk.
‘You know what, Nathan, after the trouble you’ve caused—’ began Laura.
‘Keep your hair on,’ said Neanderthal, cutting Laura off. ‘I’m just saying. Anyway, Abbott hates them.’
‘You coming, Natta?’ yelled Eddie from the door.
‘Yeah.’ Neanderthal turned to go. ‘Abbott, I wasn’t bagging you out, but you have to admit your granny is one grumpy woman. Then again, not knowing what had happened to your dad would suck.’ He lumbered outside to Eddie.
Outside the school gates, Laura slipped her bag from her shoulder. She took out a pile of papers. ‘Darce, this is the stuff I printed at home. About Charlie. In case you end up doing your project about him.’
My sigh was more a groan. I took the sheets from her. ‘Thanks.’
‘You okay?’
‘I don’t know.’ I scraped my shoe along a crack in the footpath. ‘It’s all too hard, Loz. Charlie, Misery, Neanderthal. Everything.’
‘I wish I could do something. You know, help.’
‘You are. You’re my friend, Loz.’
Laura grinned. ‘Yeah, we’re good.’
Boof’s red dual cab pulled up in front of us.
My bag felt heavier than usual. ‘Here’s Boof.’
‘Who’s that with him?’ asked Laura.
The tinted windows made it hard to see. The window glided down.
Warmth flooded my stomach.
‘Batty.’ I rushed to the car, flinging open the passenger door. ‘Grandma, are you okay?’
‘Of course I am, my dear.’ She smiled and looked around me to Laura. ‘You must be Laura Tanaka. What a wonderful friend you are.’
Laura blushed.
Batty tapped the lid of the box in her lap. ‘Darcy, we have a project to do.’
Chapter Thirty-six
‘There’s something special about being here, talking to you about this,’ said Batty, placing the box on the scrubbed-pine table.
‘I’m glad you’re here, too. And not just because I don’t have to milk.’ I passed Batty a steaming mug of tea. ‘Grandma, about the other night. At Granny’s. I’m sorry—’
Batty lifted her hand to silence me. ‘Darcy, there’s no need to apologise.’
‘But what I did was awful.’
‘When forced into corners, people do drastic things. Margaret and I both knew about the project and—’
‘You knew?’
Batty looked. ‘Darcy, this is Port Avenel. That bag of hot air Eunice Smyth told Margaret how her granddaughter Toni was interviewing her about the war. And then in the doctor’s waiting room a few weeks ago, Les Birrell told me his grandson, what’s his name?’
‘Patrick.’
‘Yes, Patrick, was doing a project on Changi. Margaret and I worked it out.’ She reached forward and patted my hand. ‘And your hints were less than subtle, my dear.’
‘Why didn’t you say something?’
‘I wanted to Darcy, but Margaret wouldn’t allow it. Whenever I tried to talk to you, she interfered.’
‘Because of how Charlie died?’
Batty pressed her fingers together. ‘What have you discovered about his death?’
‘I’ve read about Rabaul and the Montevideo Maru.’
At the mention of the ship’s name, Batty stiffened in the chair.
‘Grandma, I…’ I searched for the right words. ‘I can’t imagine how horrible it must have been. But … Why won’t Granny talk about it now? Why the wall of silence?’
‘Darcy, you know your father is dead. There’s proof—his funeral, the grave. The world knows he’s dead. But for us…’ Batty wrapped her hands around her mug. ‘With Charli
e, there was no body, no grave. No public farewell. The legal business was a nightmare.’ She shook her head. ‘And people were cruel. The talk around town was that Charlie had abandoned us, that he was alive and didn’t want to come home. It was so very painful.’
‘But he didn’t abandon you. And by staying silent, the real story stays buried.’
Batty stared at the laundry door. ‘It was too painful, Darcy. I refused to let the children mention Charlie.’
She wiped invisible crumbs from the table.
‘Whenever a man the children didn’t know arrived at the farm—a new vet, a delivery man—one of the children would ask…’ Her voice caught. ‘Is this Daddy?’ She clasped her shaking hands in her lap. ‘I’d become angry. Furious. I taught Margaret and Margaret taught Maxine that you don’t discuss or dwell on the dead. You get on with your life. It seemed the right way to handle it at the time. Margaret is still trying to protect me.’ She rubbed her eyes with big circular movements. ‘But, I don’t want Charlie’s memory to die when I do, Darcy.’
‘It won’t, Grandma, I promise.’
Grim-faced, Batty dragged the wooden box into the space between us. ‘Tell me what you have discovered so far?’
She sat straight in her chair as I spoke about Lark Force, Rabaul, the Japanese invasion and how three-quarters of Lark Force became prisoners of war. I focused on the polished box when I spoke about the government’s decision that Lark Force were ‘hostages to fortune’. At times, my throat became tight and the right words wouldn’t come but Batty listened without interrupting.
‘Today I read the mystery theory about their deaths, Charlie’s death.’ I stopped, feeling exhausted.
‘Goodness, Darcy, you’ve gathered more information in a few months than I have in sixty years.’
I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing. ‘Computers help, Grandma.’
‘Darcy, what do you think happened to them? To him?’ Batty’s face was pale. ‘Were they on the Montevideo Maru?’ She made it sound like what I thought was important.
I bowed my head. ‘Honestly, I’m not sure.’
Batty sighed. ‘Me either. I just pray it was quick.’ Batty’s breath out seemed endless. As Batty opened the box, I breathed in the smell of lavender and sorrow.
I pulled my chair closer to her.
