Complete Works of Nevil Shute

by Nevil Shute

  She wrote to him care of the shipping line at Brisbane, and she had some difficulty with that letter. Finally she said,

  Dear Joe,

  I got a letter from Mr. Strachan telling me that you had been to see him while you were in England, and that you were sorry to have missed me. Funnily enough, I have been in Australia for some weeks, and I will wait at Cairns here so that we can have a talk before you go on to Willstown.

  Don’t let’s talk too much about Malaya when we meet. We both know what happened; let’s try and forget about it.

  Will you let me know your movements — when you’ll be coming up to Cairns? I do want to meet you again.

  Yours sincerely,

  Jean Paget.

  She got a telegram on Tuesday morning to tell her he was staying to see Mrs. Spears, the owner of Midhurst, and he would be flying up to Cairns on Thursday. She went to meet him at the aerodrome, feeling absurdly like a girl of seventeen keeping her first date.

  I think Joe Harman was in a position of some difficulty as the Dakota drew near to Cairns. For six years he had carried the image of this girl in his heart, but, in sober fact, he didn’t in the least know what she looked like. The girl that he remembered had long black hair done in a pigtail down her back with the end tied up with a bit of string, like a Chinese woman. She was a very sunburnt girl, almost as brown as a Malay. She wore a tattered, faded, blouse-like top part with a cheap cotton sarong underneath; she walked on bare feet which were very brown and usually dirty, and she habitually carried a baby on her hip. He did not really think that she would look like that at Cairns, and he was troubled and distressed by the fact that he probably wouldn’t be able to recognise her again. It was unfortunate that the inner light in her, the quality that made her what he called a bonza girl, didn’t show on the surface.

  Something of his difficulty was apparent to Jean; she had wondered if he would know her while she was making herself pretty for him in her room, and had decided that he probably wouldn’t. She had no such difficulty herself for he would have changed less than she, and anyway he carried stigmata upon his hands if there were any doubt. She stood waiting for him by the white rails bounding the tarmac as the Dakota taxied in in the hot sun.

  She recognised him as he came out of the machine, fair-haired, blue-eyed, and broad-shouldered. He was looking anxiously about; his gaze fell on her, rested a minute, and passed on. She watched him, wondering if she was looking very old, and saw him start to walk towards the airline office with his curious, stiff gait. A little shaft of pain struck her; that was Kuantan, and it had left its mark on him. With her intellect she had known that this must be so, but seeing it for the first time was painful, all the same.

  She left the rails, and walked quickly across the tarmac to him, and said, “Joe!” He stopped and stared at her incredulously. He had been looking for a stranger, but it was unbelievable to him that this smart, pretty girl in a light summer frock was the tragic, ragged figure that he had last seen on the road in Malaya, sunburnt, dirty, bullied by the Japanese soldiers, with blood upon her face where they had hit her, with blood upon her feet. Then he saw a characteristic turn of her head and memories came flooding back on him; it was Mrs. Boong again, the Mrs. Boong he had remembered all those years.

  It was not in him to be able to express what he was feeling. He grinned a little sheepishly, and said, “Hullo, Miss Paget.”

  She took his hand impulsively, and said, “Oh, Joe!” He pressed her hand and looked down into her eyes, and then he said, “Where are you staying? How long are you here for?”

  She said, “I’m staying in the Strand Hotel.”

  “Why, that’s where I’m staying,” he said. “I always go there.”

  “I know,” she said. “Mrs. Smythe told me.”

  There was much here that he did not understand, but first things came first. “Wait while I get my luggage,” he said. “We can drive in together.”

  “I’ve got a taxi waiting,” she said. “Don’t let’s go in the bus.”

  In the taxi as they drove into the town she asked him, “How was Mr. Strachan, Joe?”

  “He was fine,” he said. “I stayed with him quite a long time, in his flat.”

  “Did you!” She had not known that part of it because I had not told her; I had told her the bare minimum about him since it was obvious that they were going to meet. “How long were you in England, Joe?”

  “About three weeks.”

  She did not ask him why he went because she knew that already, and it was hardly a matter to be entered on behind the taxi driver. He forestalled her, however, by asking, “What have you been doing in Australia, Miss Paget?”

  She temporised. “Didn’t you know I was here?”

  He shook his head. “All I knew was what Mr. Strachan said, that you were travelling in the East. You could have knocked me down with a feather when I got your letter at Brisbane. Oh my word, you could. Tell me, what are you doing in Cairns?”

  A little smile played around her mouth. “What were you doing in England?”

  He was silent, not knowing what to say to that. He had no lie ready. They were running through the outskirts of the town, past the churches. “We’ve got a good bit of explaining to do, Joe,” she said. “Let’s leave it till you’ve got your room at the hotel, and then we’ll find somewhere to talk.”

  They sat in silence till they got to the hotel. Jean had a bedroom opening on to a veranda that looked out over the sea to the wild, jungle-covered hills behind Cape Grafton; they arranged to meet there when he had had a wash. She knew something of Australian habits by that time. “What about a beer or two?” she asked.

  He grinned. “Good-oh.”

  She asked Doris the waitress to get four beers, three for Joe and one for her; large quantities of cold liquid were necessary in that torrid place. It was symbolic of Australia, she felt, that they should hold their first sentimental conversation with the assistance of four bottles of beer.

  She dragged two deck-chairs into a patch of shade outside her room; the beer and Joe arrived about the same time. When the waitress had gone and they were alone, she said quietly, “Let me have a good look at you, Joe.”

  He stood before her, examining her beauty; he had not dreamed when he had met her in Malaya that she was a girl like this. “You’ve not changed,” she said. “Does the back trouble you?”

  “Not much,” he said. “It doesn’t hinder me riding, thank the Lord, but I can’t lift heavy weights. They told me in the hospital I won’t ever be able to lift heavy weights again, and I’d better not try.”

  She nodded, and took one of his hands in hers. He stood beside her while she turned it over in her own, and looked at the great scars upon the palm and on the back. “What about these, Joe?”

  “They’re all right,” he said. “I can grip anything — start up a truck, or anything.”

  She turned to the table. “Have a beer.” She handed him a glass. “You must be thirsty. Three of these are for you.”

  “Good-oh.” He took a glass and sank half of it. They sat down together in the deck-chairs. “Tell me what happened to you,” he asked. “I know you said not to talk about Malaya. It was a fair cow, that place. I don’t want to remember about it any more. But I do want to know what happened to you — after Kuantan.”

  She sipped her beer. “We went on,” she said. “Captain Sugamo sent us on the same day, after — after that. We went on up the east coast with just the sergeant in charge of us. I was sorry for the sergeant, Joe, because he was very much in disgrace, because of what happened. He never got over it, and then he got fever and gave up. He died at a place called Kuala Telang, about half-way between Kuantan and Khota Bahru. That was about a month later.”

  “He was the only Nip guarding you?” he asked.

  She nodded.

  “Well, what did you do then?”

  She raised her head. “They let us stay there all the war,” she said. “We just lived in the village, working i
n the paddy-fields till the war was over.”

  “You mean, paddling about in the water, planting the rice, like the Malays?”

  “That’s right,” she said.

  “Oh my word,” he breathed.

  She said, “It wasn’t a bad life. I’d rather have been there than in a camp, I think — once we got settled down. We were all fairly healthy when the war ended, and we were able to make a little school and teach the children something. We taught some of the Malay children, too.”

  “I did hear a bit about that,” he said thoughtfully. “I heard from a pilot on the airline, down at Julia Creek.”

  She stared at him. “How did he know about us?”

  “He was the pilot of the aeroplane that flew you out, in 1945,” he replied. “He said that you got taken in trucks to Khota Bahru. He flew you from Khota Bahru to Singapore. He’s working for T.A.A. now, on the route from Townsville to Mount Isa. That goes through Julia Creek. I met him there this last May, when I was down there putting stock on to the train.”

  “I remember,” she said slowly. “It was an Australian Dakota that flew us out. Was he a thin, fair-haired boy?”

  “That’ld be the one.”

  She thought for a minute. “What did he tell you, Joe?”

  “Just what I said. He said he’d flown you down to Singapore.”

  “What did he tell you about me?” She looked at him, and there was laughter in her eyes.

  He grinned sheepishly, and said nothing.

  “Come on, Joe,” she said. “Have another beer, and let’s get this straight.”

  “All right,” he said. He took a glass and held it in his hand, but did not drink. “He said you were a single woman, Mrs. Boong. I always thought the lot of you was married.”

  “They all were, except me. Is that why you went rushing off to England?”

  He met her eyes. “That’s right.”

  “Oh Joe! What a waste of money, when here we are in Cairns?”

  He laughed with her, and took a long drink of beer. “Well, how was I to know that you’d be turning up in Cairns?” He thought for a minute. “What are you doing here, anyway?” he asked. “You haven’t told me that.”

  She was embarrassed in her turn. “I came into some money,” she said. “I think Noel Strachan told you about that.”

  “That’s right,” he said kindly.

  “I didn’t know what to do with myself then,” she said. “I didn’t want to go on working as a typist in a London suburb any more. And then I got the idea into my head that I wanted to do something for the village where we lived for those three years, Kuala Telang. I wanted to give them a well.”

  “A well?” he asked.

  Sitting there with a glass of beer in her hand she told him about Kuala Telang, and about her friends there, and the wash-house, and the well. Then she came to the difficult bit. “The well-diggers came from Kuantan,” she said. “I thought that you were dead, Joe. We all did.”

  He grinned. “I bloody nearly was.”

  “The well-diggers told me that you weren’t,” she said. “They told me that you’d been put into the hospital, and you’d recovered.”

  “That’s right,” he said. “I tried to find out what had happened to you, but they didn’t know, or if they knew they wouldn’t say. I reckon they were all scared stiff of that Sugamo.”

  She nodded. “I went to Kuantan. It’s very peaceful there now. People playing tennis on the tennis courts, and sitting gossiping under that ghastly tree. They told me at the hospital that you’d asked about us.” She smiled. “Mrs. Boong.”

  He grinned. “But did you come on to Australia from there?”

  She nodded. “Yes.”

  “What for?”

  “Well,” she said awkwardly, “I wanted to see if you were all right. I thought perhaps you might be still in hospital or something.”

  “Is that dinky-die?” he asked. “You came on to Australia because of me?”

  “In a way,” she said. “Don’t let it put ideas into your head.” He grinned. “I’d have done the same if you’d have been an Abo.”

  “Well, you’re a fine one to talk about me wasting money,” he said. “We’d have met all right if you’d have stayed in England.”

  She said indignantly, “Well, how was I to know that you’d be turning up in England, and as fit as a flea?”

  They sat drinking their beer for a time. “How did you get here?” he asked. “Where did you come to first?”

  She said, “I knew you used to work at Wollara and I thought they’d know about you there. So I flew from Singapore to Darwin, and went down to Alice on the bus.”

  “Oh my word. You went to Alice Springs? Did you go out to Wollara and see Tommy Duveen?”

  She shook her head. “I stayed about a week in Alice, and I got your address at Midhurst from Mr. Duveen over the radio, from the hospital. So then I flew up to Willstown — I sent you a wire at Midhurst to say I was coming. But they told me there, of course, that you were in England.”

  He stared at her. “Is that dinky-die? You’ve been to Willstown?”

  She nodded. “I was there three weeks.”

  “Three weeks!” He stared at her. “Where did you stay?”

  “With Mrs. Connor, in the hotel.”

  “But why three weeks? Three hours would have been enough for most people.”

  “I had to stay somewhere,” she said. “If you go running off to England, people who want to see you have to hang around. You’ll probably find the Australian Hotel’s full of them when you get back.”

  He grinned, “My word, I will. What did you do all the time?”

  “Sat around and talked to Al Burns and Pete Fletcher and Sam Small, and all the rest.”

  “You must have created a riot.” He paused, thinking deeply about this new aspect of the matter. “Did you go out to Midhurst?”

  She shook her head, “I stayed in Willstown all the time. I met Jim Lennon, though.”

  The bell rang downstairs for tea. “We’d better go down, Joe,” she said. “They don’t like it if you’re late.”

  “I know.” He picked up his glass to drain it, but sat with it in his hand, untouched. At last he said, “What did you think of Willstown, Miss Paget?”

  She smiled. “Look, Joe, forget about Miss Paget. You can call me Mrs. Boong or you can call me Jean, but if you go on with Miss Paget I’ll go home tomorrow.”

  He smiled slightly, “All right, Mrs. Boong. What did you think of Willstown?”

  “We’ll be late for tea, Joe, if we start on that.”

  “Tell me,” he said.

  She smiled at him with her eyes. “I thought it was an awful place, Joe,” she said quietly. “I can’t see how anyone can bear to live there.” She laid her hand upon his arm. “I want to talk to you about it, but we must go and have tea now.”

  He got up from his chair, and set the glass down. “Too right,” he said heavily. “It’s a crook kind of a place for a woman.”

  They went down to tea and sat at a table together, Joe deep in gloom. When they had ordered, Jean said, “Joe, how long have you got? When have you got to be back at Midhurst?”

  He raised his head and grinned. “When I’m ready to go back,” he said. “I been away so long a few days more won’t make any difference.” He paused. “What about you?”

  “I only came here to see if you were all right, Joe,” she said. “I suppose I’ll go down to Brisbane and start looking for a boat home next week.”

  Their food came, roast beef for Joe, cold ham and salad for Jean. “What have you been doing since you came to Cairns?” he asked presently. “Been out to the Reef?”

  She shook her head. “I went down to Rockhampton once, and I went on one of the White Tours up to the Tableland, and stayed a night in Atherton. I’ve not been anywhere else.”

  “Oh my word,” he said. “You can’t go home without seeing the Great Barrier Reef.” He paused, and then he said, “Would you like to go out t
o Green Island for the week-end?”

  She cocked an eye at him. “What’s Green Island like?”

  “It’s just a coral island on the reef,” he explained. “A little round one, about half a mile across. There’s a restaurant on it and little sort of bedroom huts where you can stay, in among the trees. It’s a bonza little place if you like bathing. Wear your bathers all the day.”

  Jean thought the little bedroom huts among the trees wanted checking up on, but the suggestion certainly had its points. They knew so little about each other; they had so much to learn, so much to talk about. Whatever else might happen if she spent a week-end in her bathing dress with Joe Harman on a coral island, they would certainly come back from it knowing more about each other than they would learn under the restraints of Cairns.

  “I’d like to do that, Joe,” she said. “How would we get there?”

  He beamed with pleasure, and she was glad for him. “I’ll slip out after tea and find Ernie,” he said. “He’s probably in the bar at Hides. He’s got a boat, and he’ll run us out there tomorrow; it’ll take about three hours. We’d better start about eight o’clock, before the sun gets hot. Then I’d ask him to come out and fetch us on Monday, say.”

  “All right,” she agreed. “But look, Joe — this is to be Dutch treat.” He did not understand that term. “I mean, you pay the boat one way and I’ll pay it the other, and we both pay our own bills.” He objected strenuously. “If we don’t do that, Joe, I won’t come,” she said. “I’ll think you’re plotting to do me a bit of no good.”

  He grinned. “Too right.” And then he said, “All right, Mrs. Boong, we’ll each pay our own whack.”

  He went out after tea and came back to her on the veranda half an hour later; he had found Ernie and arranged the boat, and he had bought a large basket of fruit to take with them. In the quick dusk and the darkness they sat together for some hours, talking of everything but Willstown. She learned a lot about his early life on the various stations, and about his relations in and around Cloncurry, about his war service, and about Midhurst. “It’s got a bonza rainfall, Midhurst has,” he said. “We got thirty-four inches in the last wet; down at Alice it’s a good year if you get ten inches. I’ve been asking Mrs. Spears if we couldn’t build a couple of dams at the head of the creeks to hold back some of the water — one across the head of Kangaroo Creek and one on the Dry Gum.”