Whitsunday Dawn

by Annie Seaton

  Liv shook her head. ‘It’s my father, Fynn.’

  ‘Still, make sure you lock up the apartment, and put your computer in the safe. Or I could keep it on the boat for you.’

  Liv shook her head. ‘I don’t think there’s any need to be so extreme.’

  ‘Just be careful, okay? Make sure you lock it in the safe when it’s charged. And set your own combination.’

  ‘All right. I will.’

  She stood at the top as Fynn ran lightly down the stairs. He stopped when he reached the landing halfway down and called up to her. ‘I’ll come over and see you when I hear back from Greg. Enjoy!’ With a final wave, he disappeared down the stairs. Liv turned thoughtfully and went back into the apartment.

  And locked the door behind her.

  CHAPTER

  22

  21 May, 1942

  The cloud was heavy and ominous and, for a brief time, the sun slanted through a hole in the heavy mass, lightening the green forest on the mountain in the centre of Whitsunday Island to a soft tint. The full moon of the night before was now a memory, one that Lily cherished. Last night, she and Jack had wandered down to the jetty after dinner to watch it rise over Whitsunday Peak. Charlie and Roger had been with him this trip; they’d been granted leave and had jumped at the chance to come back to the island with Jack, although for the two days they had been there, the weather had been uncooperative.

  Since Jack had kissed her, they became closer every time he visited. ‘I can’t stop worrying until Dumbo flies over the Passage on your way back.’

  ‘There’s nothing for you to worry about. And apart from the noise, there’s nothing unpleasant about being up there. It’s quite boring.’ Jack pulled her to him, and she tried to push aside her worry, she knew he was making light of going on the missions. She’d read more in the Courier Mail about the war in the Coral Sea than Jack had ever told her. They stood together quietly as the moon crept above Whitsunday Peak. A mass of dark cloud was approaching from the east and the moon slipped in and out of the clouds running before the wind.

  ‘Look at that. The sky is strange tonight and the shoreline is spooky,’ Lily whispered as she pointed across the bay. Grotesquely shaped mangrove trees rose up, broken boulders overhung the banks poised to fall. Dark-shelled crabs scurried on the mud flats as the tide ebbed and the moon seemed to sail through the clouds. As they watched the play of nature, a beam of light crossed the water and the noise of an engine reached them. Lily moved away from Jack and walked to the edge of the jetty as the launch from South Molle Island came into the bay.

  Lily looked up at him as fear skittered through her. ‘Do you think they are going to tell us something about the Japanese? Do you think they’ve landed on the coast? I’d better run and get Dad.’ She stepped away from Jack, torn between waiting to hear what the boat was doing here at night, and knowing that Dad would want to hear any war news.

  ‘Let’s just wait.’ Jack reached for her hand and held onto it tightly. He didn’t let go as the sound of footsteps coming down from the house reached them. A light bobbed up and down on the path approaching the jetty and they waited as Dad appeared with Roger and Charlie by his side, and they hurried along the timber planks.

  ‘I saw the lights of the boat coming around the point,’ Dad said. They all walked to the end of the jetty and waited together as the launch drew closer. The engines cut when it was about twenty yards away and Owen, the youngest Bauer boy, climbed to the front of the launch.

  ‘Are you going to come into the jetty?’ Boyd called out, holding the light aloft.

  ‘No, I just needed to let you know there’s a big blow on the way. You’ll need to secure your house and sheds. They reckon it’s going to be a bad one.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Boyd called back. ‘Who said that?’

  ‘They’re predicting gale force winds,’ Owen called as he kept the boat steady, a couple of feet away from the jetty.

  Lily looked at Jack with a frown. ‘How can they possibly know that?’

  ‘The met service in Brisbane telegraphed the base up at Bowen to tell them to secure the aircraft.’ Owen’s reply answered her question. ‘The base has telegraphed all towns north and south of us for a couple of hundred miles. Prossie stationmaster telegraphed South Molle, and we’re calling in to all the islands tonight before the wind brings the Passage up.’

  ‘Thanks, Owen. They must think it’s going to be a big blow.’

  ‘So they say.’ He looked over at Jack. ‘There’ll be no launches on the Passage for a couple of days. Do you need a message telegraphed to the base?’

  ‘We’ll have to get a lift to Proserpine and take the train back north,’ Jack said. On this trip, the three men had come down on the launch as they had four days before they had to return to base.

  Owen’s teeth flashed white in the lamplight. ‘There’ll be no boats going to the mainland, either, mate, if this wind gets as bad as they are saying. I’d offer to take you but it’s bad enough having to get back to South Molle. We’ll just have to bunker down until it blows itself out.’

  Jack waved an acknowledgement. ‘Then yes, please. My last name is Rickard. Just let them know the three of us will get back as soon as we can.’ He turned to Roger and Charlie. ‘I wonder what they’ll do with the aircraft.’

  ‘I’d say that they’d have them up on the hard stand on the harbour and secured by now. Just as well we got it done before this.’ Charlie’s eyes were wide. ‘I’ve heard what damage these tropical storms can do.’

  Lily looked up at the moon as the diesel motor revved. The ghostly cloud that surrounded the orb was eerie and as she focused on the cloud backlit by the moonlight, she pointed upwards. ‘Look, Dad. Even though it’s not windy here, the clouds are fair scudding up there.’

  They stood and watched the launch as it headed back over the bay. It was so still, there wasn’t a ripple on the water. Boyd scratched his head as they turned to walk back to the house.

  ‘I guess that’s the first good thing that’s come out of this blasted war, anyway.’

  ‘What’s that, Dad?’ Lily had been pleased that Dad hadn’t commented on Jack holding her hand.

  ‘A weather warning. First time that’s ever happened to my knowledge. I hope this storm’s not going to turn into a bloody cyclone. It’s May, should be way too late for one anyway.’

  They were quiet as they walked back to the house.

  * * *

  Next day, when the Ellis household stirred just after dawn, it was hot and the air was thick, like the tin of syrup Jack had seen Liliana’s mother put in a pan of water in the pantry to stop the ants climbing into the sweetness.

  A patchy curtain of autumn mist hung over the mountains on the mainland. Ants were scurrying about, and a long black line crawled up the post on the side of the front door. Others had built cones of sand and earth around the entrances to their nests on the track down to the jetty. Mrs Ellis had told Roger, Jack and Charlie to come up to the house for breakfast, as they’d offered to help with any storm preparation. Jack had called Roger and Charlie down to the jetty at dawn, and already there were white caps out in the Passage, although strangely, the water around Whitsunday Island was still smooth.

  ‘Maybe we could take one of the boats across?’ Charlie said when they went up for breakfast. ‘I’m a bit worried about not getting back to the base when we’re supposed to.’

  Boyd shook his head. ‘Trust me, you don’t want to be out in the Passage in my small launch if that wind comes roaring in.’

  The scrubbed table that took up most of the kitchen was full, and they listened as Boyd gave out a list of jobs. ‘If we do get this blow’—his voice was sceptical because there still wasn’t a breath of wind outside and Sawmill Bay was like glass—‘there’s a few chores that we need to get done now.’

  He nodded at the twins. ‘You pair, get up there and get those nanny goats in with the herd before they look for shelter. If there is a blow coming through, they’ve prob
ably gone already and it’s probably too late to lock them up.’ Boyd kept the baby goats, about thirty of them, in a large wire enclosure up the hill from the house on a flat rise. The milking mothers had the freedom of the hill to graze. It was the boys’ job to herd the mothers to their offspring every morning.

  Jack was intrigued, being used to the independence of horses and cattle. ‘I’ll give the boys a hand. If you tell me what to do, I’m another pair of hands.’

  ‘Another pair of legs is what you’ll need up there, Jack.’ Boyd nodded with a grin. ‘Okay, Lil, you go too. You can both help the twins. You might have a chance of success if there’s four of you.’ The twins jumped up from the table with a whoop and Boyd turned to the others. ‘Roger and Charlie, I’ll get you to give me a hand up on the roof of the stone shed. The iron has been flapping. We’ll get up there and secure that. Alex, you and the girls pick up anything loose lying around the house yard and secure it in the shed.’ He scratched his head as he looked up at the sky. It was clear and blue, and the only sign of wind was the thready white clouds up high. ‘Crazy. That’s what it is.’

  Liliana strode ahead of Jack up the hill. ‘We have to round the kids up first.’ She jumped over rocks and stubby tree stumps with an agility that surprised him. Bleating carried on a stiff wind met them at the top of the rise, but their attention was drawn to the sea to the east. The sky was sheet-metal grey, and a long dark roll cloud stretched along the horizon as far as they could see. The swell pushing to the beach was much bigger than he’d seen it before. Jack followed Liliana as she turned and hurried over to the twins.

  ‘Come on, you pair, hurry up. We need to get this done and then get back down to the house and help Dad.’

  Billy and Robert were already between the baby goats and the edge of the cliff. The herd was at the last fence before the hill ran in a steep overhang to the beach south of the jetty. The early mist had cleared and from the top of the flat hill, Jack could see the houses scattered along the mainland to the west. The sky westwards was blue, in complete contrast to the angry sky on the seaward side of the island. The air was so clear, it was as though you could almost reach out and touch the houses on the coast.

  ‘Is the fence to stop them going over the cliff?’ Jack asked as they approached the goats.

  ‘No, it’s to keep them contained. The goats were here when Mama and Daddy first moved here and built our house. Apparently, the goats were put on the island to provide food for shipwrecked sailors, or that’s the way the story goes. They cause dreadful damage to the bush and the ground, so Daddy has confined them to a small part of our land. The fence is to protect the island, not the goats.’ Liliana smiled as she held his eyes.

  ‘What are you thinking about now?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m surprised that Dad worries about the goats so much. A couple of years back, on Christmas morning, the twins got up early and crept out to the tree. We were all woken up by the most awful yells and screams. One of the baby goats had got through the fence, climbed the steps and pushed open the screen door. It had unwrapped all the Christmas presents. Dad shook his head and said that’s what you get for keeping goats.’

  ‘It’s never dull here, is it?’ Jack pulled the gate shut as the two small boys chased the last of the kids in. It was very different to his home in the Hunter Valley. There was always laughter in the Ellis house, and always something happening here on the island, although they were the only family that lived here apart from the occasional guests in the bungalows.

  Growing up on the vineyard had been about work, not family. Life at home was always serious and it was about making as much money as could be made from the grapes, the cattle and the small horse stud.

  ‘That’s all a matter of perspective. You try living here all the time. You just get to see the fun parts. When the war is over, I’ll head back to the city.’ Liliana pushed the gate open and they entered the enclosure. The twins had the goats contained in one corner. She picked up a couple of long sticks and passed one to Jack. ‘There’s never much money to spare. That’s why Dad built the bungalows, to try and make some more money to pay for boarding school for all of us.’

  ‘What about the fishing? I thought that the fish would get a good price at the markets?’

  Liliana laughed again. ‘Dad says the fishermen here in the islands are either stony broke or blooming millionaires by Christmas every year. It all depends on the run of kingies in the winter.’

  ‘Kingies?’

  ‘Striped tuna fish. When they’re on, his catch is railed to Brisbane from Proserpine. But Dad says you can’t put all your eggs in one basket, so we have the fruit trees and pineapples and the goats. We do okay most of the time.’

  Liliana was close to her father, a relationship Jack was unfamiliar with. Maybe if he’d tried harder instead of having to suggest improvements as though he knew best, he could have had an easier relationship with his father. He had learned a lot about dealing with people in the air force. Maybe after the war, he could go back home and try again. Collaboration …

  It didn’t take long to secure the enclosure, but by the time they’d finished, a strange, hot wind had begun to blow straight off the ocean. Jack stood on top of the hill and pointed to the ominous cloud on the horizon. ‘Look. I think that Owen bloke might have been right.’ The cloud was rolling in and getting closer to the shore.

  Liliana reached up and pushed a wayward strand of hair from her eyes. She frowned and stood staring at the sky. ‘I’ve never seen such a peculiar cloud, or felt a hot wind off the sea. And look at the way the wind is whipping the waves up already. You can see the wind line not far out where the water changes colour.’ She turned to the twins who’d shinnied up a tree at the edge of the bush. ‘Come on, you pair. Dad’s going to need our help down at the house now. And securing the boats in the bay as quick as we can by the look of that wind line.’

  As they hurried down the hill, the branches whipped in the wind that was getting stronger each minute. The deathly still of the morning had gone, and Jack looked up as the wind keened through the tops of the trees. As they reached the gate that led to the house yard, Tat came running up past the side of the house.

  ‘Jack, Lil. Come quick. We need you. Daddy’s hurt.’

  Liliana wrenched the gate open and took off after Tat, Jack close behind her. ‘Where is he?’ she yelled.

  ‘Down at the jetty. Mama’s with him. He got his leg caught in between the boat and the jetty while he was trying to tie the ropes off. This huge wave came in and pushed the boat onto him and he slipped between the boat and the planks.’

  ‘Is he still caught?’ Jack called as he ran past them both.

  ‘No, Roger and Charlie got him onto the jetty, but he can’t walk. Mama’s with him down on the jetty.’

  By the time they ran down the path and reached the bay, Boyd was standing on one foot, bracing his weight with one arm on Roger’s shoulder, and the other on his wife’s. His brows were drawn in pain, and his lips were set in a straight line.

  ‘Do you think it’s broken?’ Jack asked as he stood beside the taller man and offered his shoulder for Boyd to lean on.

  Mrs Ellis stepped away. ‘No. I think he’s just wrenched it when he pulled it out between the boat and the jetty.’ As they stood there, another large wave pushed up on the side of the boat and Boyd groaned.

  ‘If it gets much worse, my boat’s not going to hold. I didn’t get it tied off at the stern.’

  ‘Where’s Charlie?’ Jack looked around.

  ‘He went down to the bungalows to get our bags when we came down here,’ Roger said.

  ‘I told them to come and bunk up in the house with us. Those bungalows weren’t built to withstand a strong wind.’ Boyd looked up at the trees that were bending in the wind. ‘Owen’s right. This is going to be a nasty storm.’

  Jack nodded to Lily. ‘Roger and I will get your dad up to the house and then we’ll come back down and finish the job if you can tell us what to do.’ He had
to raise his voice to be heard over the now howling wind.

  It was a slow convoy that got Boyd back to the house. Mrs Ellis ran ahead with the twins and by the time Jack and Roger had helped him up the hill, Boyd was drenched with perspiration. They lowered him onto a chair on the verandah, and he issued directions from there, frustration lacing his voice.

  The heat was intense, and the thick air almost suffocating. The clouds were rolling in from the north and every few minutes Liliana would throw an agitated look at the sky. Rumbles of thunder presaged the fast-approaching clouds. An hour later, the boat was secured as best they could manage, and Roger and Charlie had helped Jack drag the two dinghies up into the bush and weighted them down with rocks as Liliana had suggested. The bungalows were as secure as they could be, and the sheds around the house were locked up, with all the loose implements from the yard and vegetable patch locked away inside. They pushed their way along the path back to the house, ducking below the whipping branches. The clouds were dark and boiling, but it wasn’t raining yet.

  ‘Jeez,’ Charlie yelled. ‘I wonder how long this bastard’ll blow for.’

  ‘Might be stuck here for a week or more.’ Roger’s grin was wide. Jack wondered if there would be any consequences for them not coming back. They should have tried for the mainland before the wind hit. There might have been time, but they wouldn’t have been able to help the Ellis family prepare for the big blow.

  Liliana was waiting on the verandah and she held the door open for them as they went inside.

  Even though it was only early afternoon, the room was dark. Someone had lit the lamps on the tables near the windows. A rosy glow came from the huge wood stove in the kitchen, and Mrs Ellis stood there stirring something with a tantalising smell. Boyd was sitting at the table with his leg stretched out on another chair, a couple of cushions elevating his foot.

  ‘Boats are all secured.’ Jack crouched down beside him. ‘How’s the ankle?’