SOMEDAY SOON (3 page)

*

With the only evacuation options left open to
the Horan bothers being a long trek southward across the Australian
continent on foot, or an immediate escape by sea to the north, the
decision was not hard to make. As they plodded, grumbling and
cursing, through the darkened, rubble-strewn streets towards their
boat at the swamp on Mindil Beach, they stopped frequently to help
themselves to whatever they could carry from abandoned shops and
homes along the way. With their sea-bags and rifles making it
impossible to steal bulky items, their prime booty was liquor and
cigarettes. Occasionally they saw police and military vehicles, but
with the authorities having more urgent matters than looters to
attend to, the croc-shooters were never challenged.

From time to time they stopped for a
breather, put down their heavy loads and drank greedily from a
whisky bottle. When they finally reached Myilly Point, the headland
seemed strangely peaceful. The nearby Darwin civil hospital had
been hit by bombers because of its close proximity to anti-aircraft
batteries and the army barracks, but mercifully the buildings on
the point itself had somehow been spared.

The brothers sat down in the moonlight
on a rocky outcrop overlooking Mindil Beach and drank more whisky.
From where they sat they could make out the dark shadow of their
thirty foot sloop, the
Groote Eylandt
Lady,
at the edge of the swamp. When they had
abandoned the old run-down vessel earlier in the day to go ashore
in the sloop’s dinghy, she had been sitting in six feet of water.
Now they could plainly see the silhouette of the mast leaning over
at a sharp angle after being left high and dry by the outgoing
tide.

With several hours to kill before they could
set sail, the croc-shooters decided to look for a more comfortable
place to pass the time. Noticing a small cottage which faced out
over the sea, they were surprised to find both the front and back
doors locked. Most people had left the doors of their homes wide
open in their haste to join the exodus from town. Horan raised a
big foot and kicked hard. The back door flew open revealing a dark
kitchen.

‘Anyone home?’

Both men cocked their heads and listened.
There was no answer. They stepped inside and laid their gear on the
floor. Nick struck a match and looked around. There was a
candlestick in a jar on the kitchen table which he lit.

Holding the candle high, he led the way
through a narrow corridor to the front of the little house. It was
as neat as a pin with no sign of a rushed departure. In the living
room, the flickering candle illuminated oriental wall pictures and
polished rosewood furniture. At a window overlooking the ocean, a
sewing machine stood on an ornate teak cabinet and beside it was a
high-backed rocking chair. When the candlelight fell on the face of
a small figure sitting motionless in the rocking chair, both men
were almost startled out of their wits.

Nick was the first to recover. He lunged
forward and grabbed Aki Hamada’s tiny throat in a huge hand and
lifted her out of the chair. She stood eyes lowered, wearing a
black silk kimono, her little body trembling with fear.

Nick’s eyes widened. ‘God Almighty, Henry.
It’s a bloody Jap.’

Henry lurched back into the kitchen and
groped around in the darkness. He returned almost immediately with
his rifle in his hands. He leveled it at Aki. ‘All right, how many
more bloody nips are in the house?’

Aki was terrified. Horan’s choking grip on
her throat was so tight she could hardly breath. ‘There is no one,’
she gasped. She felt the hold on her throat ease a little and added
quickly, ‘but my son will be here soon with many of his
shipmates.’

Henry grinned. ‘And I suppose they are all in
the bloody Imperial Japanese Navy.’ His eyes were becoming used to
the candlelight now and, with his rifle pressed against his
shoulder, he moved around the cottage. Just outside the living room
there were two closed bedroom doors off the narrow corridor. He
kicked one door open and charged inside. Finding the room empty he
repeated the exercise with the second room. Satisfied there was no
on else in the house, he lowered the rifle and returned to the
living room.

Both men stood for a long time, their eyes
appraising Aki. Without releasing his iron grip on her throat, Nick
laid the candle down on a table and tore off her kimono. She was
naked beneath it. As his eyes travelled over her slim, firm body he
let out a whistle of appreciation.

‘Which room has the biggest bed, Henry?

‘In there.’ Henry nodded his hairy head to
the first door without taking his eyes off Aki.’

Nick took his hand from Aki’s throat and
grabbed her long black hair. ‘I think I’ll give this bitch a little
of what the Japs gave us this morning,’ he said as he dragged her
across the floor to the bedroom. ‘Keep an eye open for anyone
coming, Henry. And don’t get too impatient. There’s plenty here for
both of us.’

*

It was two hours before the incoming
tide was deep enough to float the croc-shooters’ dinghy, and two
more before there was enough water under the
Groote Eyelandt Lady’s
shoal draft keel to allow
her to nose her way out to sea in the darkness.

In the little cottage on the headland, Aki’s
torn and ravaged body lay prone on her bed, the life choked out of
her by Henry Horan’s huge hands in a final act of physical
debasement.

The forty-six foot ketch
Faraway
approached Bathurst Island in
darkness. That morning she had weighed anchor at Trepang Bay on the
northern coast of the Coburg Peninsular, rounded Cape Don, then
slogged her way south-westward all day, using a favorable breeze
and the notorious tidal streams of Van Diemen Gulf to her best
advantage. Now, as the crew lowered the vessel’s sails, the usual
evening thunder storms associated with the wet were beginning to
put on their spectacular show of lightening.

The old ketch’s engine coughed to life.
Joe Brodie stood at the controls in the wheelhouse clad only in
cut-off khaki army shorts, his lanky body glistening with sweat. In
normal times he could bring
Faraway
into the Catholic mission jetty on Bathurst under sail, even
in the dark. But when the Japanese had entered the war, the
familiar guiding lights on shore had been blacked out when the
military had enlisted the missionaries as coast watchers. Now, all
the Top End island missions had become legitimate targets for enemy
warplanes because of their airstrips and their radio communications
with the mainland. As he strained to see the way ahead, Joe cursed
the Japanese for the darkness and for forcing him to use precious
petrol.

Fast moving clouds intermittently
obscured the moon, forcing Joe to rely on the occasional flash of
lightening and his local knowledge to guide
Faraway
through the patches of shallows and
rocks. From time to time he swung the wheel hard to the left or
right when his crewman, Koko Hamada, standing lookout on the
bowsprit, shouted out instructions as he sighted hazards in the
water ahead. Joe’s two other crewmen, both young Aborigines, stood
fore and aft, ready with mooring lines, their black bodies only
visible when lightening lit up the night.

‘
Lantern on the jetty,’ Koko shouted
out when he spotted a light on the shore moving to and
fro.

Joe cut back the engine and edged
toward the light. When
Faraway
gently nudged against the jetty pilings, the two Aborigines
jumped ashore, made fast the mooring lines and laid down a
gangplank. A little man in a clerical collar and shorts and sandals
hurried aboard. His white hair glowed in the lantern light as he
crossed the deck to the wheelhouse.

‘Father Jack.’ Joe held out a big hand. ‘I’m
sorry I’m a couple of days late. I hope you didn’t think I’d
forgotten your evacuees.’

Father Jack grimaced. ‘After what happened
this morning, I’ve been thanking the Lord all day that they’re
still on Bathurst Island.’

Joe looked surprised. ‘Oh, what
happened?’

‘Don’t you know?’ The priest glanced from Joe
to Koko as he clambered down into the wheelhouse. ‘But of course
you wouldn’t,’ he added quickly. ‘You’ve been sailing all day from
the north-east.’ He drew a deep breath. ‘The Japs hit Darwin around
ten o’clock this morning. There were hundreds of aircraft—bombers
and fighters. They strafed the mission as they flew over us on
their way to the mainland.’

Joe was stunned. ‘Oh, my God. How bad was it
in Darwin, Father?’

‘We don’t really know. We got on the radio of
course to sound the alarm. But within minutes the Japs had jammed
the emergency frequency. We’re fearing the worst. There were two
attacks and so many aircraft.’

Joe and Koko exchanged anxious glances.

‘Well, we did manage to send the warning,’
Father Jack said, reading their thoughts. ‘And it’s almost fifty
miles to the mainland. There should have been enough time for
civilians to take cover and for the Army to man the anti-aircraft
guns. And there must have been some aircraft at the RAAF
station.’

‘Sometimes there is, sometime there isn’t,’
Joe said quietly.

‘We know the Japs met air resistance from the
Americans,’ Father Jack said grimly. ‘One of their planes crashed
into the sea about a mile offshore. We went out in a small boat and
picked up the pilot. He was alive.’

‘Alive?’ Joe’s eyebrows rose. ‘What did he
say, Father?’

‘Nothing much yet. He was conscious when we
found him floating in his life jacket. But he passed out in the
boat on the way to shore. He doesn’t seem to be hurt badly, just a
few bruises here and there. But he’s still unconscious. He’s up at
the house. Sister Mary’s been at his bedside since we brought him
in.’

‘He’s a lucky man,’ Koko said. He suddenly
frowned. ‘If he went down a mile out, how did you know he wasn’t a
Jap?’

‘We didn’t.’ Father Jack smiled benignly.
‘But we are missionaries here, Koko, and the pilot was a human
being in need.’

‘The boat’s secure, boss,’ one of the two
Aboriginal crewman said as they both appeared at the wheelhouse
door.

‘Well, we’d best be going up to the mission.’
Father Jack said. ‘We saw your sails hours ago so we had plenty of
time to prepare you a good meal.’ The priest looked at the
Aborigines and smiled. ‘I told cook to be sure she made enough for
Sunday and Monday as well.’

The black faces of Sunday and Monday broke
into wide white grins.

*

There were over three hundred
Aborigines living in the mission village. Supervised by the
missionaries, they raised livestock and grew most of their own food
in the surrounding fields. Any other requirements were brought to
the island by small supply vessels like
Faraway
or, in an emergency, by light aircraft.
As the group walked up to Father Jack’s house in the darkness there
were friendly waves from the shadows.

Father Jack’s cook, an old Aboriginal named
Rosie, served lamb stew and potatoes as soon as everyone arrived at
the house. Joe, Koko and Father Jack sat in the glow of a candle at
the kitchen table. Sunday and Monday ate outside on the front
porch. After the meal, Rosie brought a pot of tea to the white men
at the table. An hour later they were still speculating on the
aftermath of the air raids when a young white woman hurried into
the kitchen.

‘
What is it, Sister Mary?’ Father Jack
asked anxiously.

‘The American flyer. He’s awake. He’s asking
all sorts of questions. He’s….’

‘He’s well and damn glad to be alive,’ a
voice with an American accent called out. A barefoot young man
wrapped in a bed sheet followed Sister Mary into the room. He had a
sharp angular face and dark hair. Joe took him to be in his
mid-twenties. The young man thrust out a hand, clutching the bed
sheet around him with the other. ‘I’m Captain Dan Rivers. I want to
thank you all for fishing me out of the sea.’

Everyone stood up and shook hands. The
pilot’s dark eyes narrowed when he saw Koko’s face in the candle
glow.

‘It’s all right, mate.’ Koko said quickly.
‘I’m as Australian as steak and eggs.’

‘Sit down, Captain.’ Father Jack gestured to
a chair. He turned to Sister Mary. ‘Ask Rosie to prepare another
plate and would you fetch my dressing gown, please.’ He turned back
to the pilot. ‘Are you sure you feel well enough to be up, young
man?’

The pilot grinned. ‘Nothing wrong with me
that a square meal won’t fix, Father.’

A few minutes later, clad in Father Jack’s
too-small dressing gown and heartily eating a generous serving of
stew, Captain Rivers fielded questions about the air raids on
Darwin.’

‘I don’t think it could have been worse,’ he
said somberly. ‘By the time we all realized what was happening,
half the ships in the harbor and a lot of buildings had been hit.
Everyone was caught completely by surprise.’

‘But we sent a radio message,’ Father
Jack interjected. ‘We warned Darwin the Japanese were
coming
.’

‘Yes, but no-one sounded the alarm. Ten
American P-40 fighters had left Darwin for Koepang twenty minutes
earlier, then radioed in saying they were returning on account of
poor weather. The radio operators thought the planes you saw were
the Kittyhawks coming back.’

‘Were you flying one of them?’ Joe asked.

‘No, I was left behind because my airplane
was unserviceable. I was in a hangar on the airfield when five of
the Kitty’s landed just minutes before the Japs arrived. They were
all shot up on the ground. The five still in the air were so
outnumbered they didn’t have a chance. Some of those poor guys had
never seen an enemy aircraft before.’