SOMEDAY SOON (4 page)

‘Have you, Captain?’

‘Yes, I was with the US Army Air Force in the
Philippines.’

‘But if your plane was unserviceable, how did
you get shot down?’ Koko asked.

‘Our maintenance guys kept working on
it during the raid. They finished it about an hour after it ended
and I
was ordered to fly to Batchelor Field to join a
small P-40’s squadron there. I just got airborne when the Japs came
a second time. This time it was high-altitude bombers. But they had
fighter cover. A couple of zeros spotted me and chased me out over
the ocean. When they caught up with me I took them on. I knocked
one of them out but the other one got me. Suddenly I was smoking
bad and going down. I almost made it to the strip here at the
mission. I don’t know what happened to the zero I hit but the other
one must have figured I was a goner and took off. He would have
gone back to cover their bombers. Only thing was, there were no
fighters in Darwin to take them on.’

‘What about the RAAF Wirraways?’ Joe
asked.

‘There’s only nine or ten and they were sixty
miles south at Batchelor Field. And it was probably just as well
because they wouldn’t have stood a chance. The Wirraway’s top speed
is a hundred and fifty. Zeros can do more than double that and
they’re armed with better guns.’

Joe sighed resignedly. ‘Was the
steamer
Zealandia
still in
port?’ he asked.

‘
Yes, the Jap Betty bombers really did
a job on the docks. The
Zealandia
took direct hits. Why do you ask?’

‘
My sister was to be evacuated on
her.’

The captain looked at Joe, then Koko. ‘You
guys from Darwin?’

Joe nodded. ‘I’m the skipper of a
coastal trader, the ketch,
Faraway
. Koko’s sailed with me for years. He has
family in Darwin too—his mother. We’re on our way there now. We
called in at Bathurst to pick up evacuees.’

‘When do you leave?’

‘At first light tomorrow.’

‘I must get back to my unit,’ the pilot said
anxiously. ‘I figure today’s raids were just to soften Darwin up
for a Jap landing. You will take me with you, won’t you?’

Joe glanced at Father Jack. ‘Yes. If Father
Jack says you’re well enough to travel.’

*

The scattered thunderstorms had cleared
by morning. With the first streaks of dawn’s light, eight part
Aboriginal children carrying all their worldly possessions in brown
paper parcels tied up with string boarded
Faraway.
Koko told them to sit down on the deck,
out of the way of the workings of the ketch, until she was
underway. As the sun lumbered up out of the ocean burning off a
steamy early morning mist, Sunday and Monday hoisted the sails and
the ketch put to sea, leaving Father Jack and a crowd of blacks
waving on the jetty.

As soon as the vessel came out of the
lee of the land a fresh westerly filled her sails. Joe set a direct
course for Darwin across Beagle Gulf and
Faraway
began to leave a bubbling wake astern.
With the vessel making such a good turn of speed, Koko told the
evacuees to stay seated where they were on the deck and to keep a
sharp lookout for ships and aircraft.

Captain Rivers climbed part way up the
companionway steps and handed Joe a mug of tea. A moment later he
climbed up into the wheel house with a cup of his own. He wore his
pilot’s fatigues and moved with sure-footed agility in spite of the
motion of the vessel. He stood beside Joe at the wheel, sipping
tea, watching Sunday and Monday nimbly trimming the sails.

‘
Those two Aborigines,’ he said after a
few moments. ‘It’s hard to tell one from the other. Are they
twins?’

Joe grinned. ‘Yes, they are.’

‘Have they got real names?’

‘Sunday and Monday are their real names. One
was born just before midnight on a Sunday and the other an hour
later, or so the story goes.’

The pilot turned his attention to the sky and
the water.

Joe handed him a pair of binoculars. ‘Do you
think the Japs will come back today, Captain?’

‘Hard to say,’ the pilot raised the glasses.
‘If they’re going to land they’ll come by sea. If they think they
missed anything worth hitting yesterday there may be another air
strike. But if they accomplished all they wanted to do yesterday
they may not be back for a while.’

‘God, let’s hope so.’ Joe gestured toward the
women and children on the deck. ‘At least until I get this lot
ashore and on their way to Adelaide.’

‘How long before we reach Darwin, Joe?’

‘About six hours if this wind keeps up. A lot
longer if it doesn’t.’

‘Can’t you start the engine?’

‘We’ve only got enough petrol to run the
engine for an hour at most.’

The American lowered the glasses. ‘How come
you’re ferrying their kids to the mainland anyway?’

‘All the island missions were told the Navy
would be evacuating them. But the ships never arrived. The mission
on Bathurst is one of the lucky ones. It’s close to Darwin, so some
of the private coastal vessels have been picking up a few at a time
This lot is the last to leave.’

‘But there’s still plenty of people left
there.’

‘Just blacks. The government only evacuates
whites or half-whites. Father Jack and Sister Mary don’t agree with
that. That’s why they’re staying on. He told me last night they
must do what they feel God wants them to do.’

The captain sipped more tea and swallowed.
‘What are you going to do, Joe? There won’t be much work for a
coastal trader in these waters now.’

‘I know,’ Joe said grimly. He felt the
wind ease and shouted at Sunday to Monday to sheet-in the sails.
‘The last few months there’s been shortages of everything. Now
there are practically no cargoes at all. Even if there were, I
can’t get the petrol I need. And the bank’s screaming because I’m
behind on the boat payments. Soon they’ll have to deal with the
Army or the Navy because
Faraway
will probably be commandeered soon after we get to
Darwin.’

‘So where does that leave you?’

‘Since I’ll no longer be performing an
essential service, the Army will call me up like everyone else.
This damn war has changed everything for everyone.’

‘You can say that again.’ The American
drained the last of his tea. ‘Last summer I was looking forward to
getting out of this man’s Army and going home to New Mexico. Now
I’m in the Top End of Australia. Three weeks ago I didn’t even know
where it was.’

‘What kind of work do you do in civvy-street,
Captain?’

‘I’m an engineer.’ The captain raised the
binoculars again and scoured the ocean. After a few moments he
said: ‘Look, over there.’ He pointed over the port bow. ‘What’s
that?

Joe took the glasses. About three or four
miles off he saw a small vessel travelling towards them under
power. He handed back the binoculars. ‘Looks like a small private
craft. Must have been able to scrounge up enough fuel to get out of
Darwin. As they eyed the little boat the wind suddenly dropped
again. Robbed of air the sails flapped noisily. In minutes the
ketch was wallowing in a sloppy sea.

Koko came to the wheelhouse from the fore
deck. ‘Looks like that’s all the air we’re going to get for a
while, Skipper. We’ll be sitting ducks if the Japs come back again
today. What do you reckon? Do we start the engine?’

‘I suppose.’ Joe said. ‘But I don’t think
we’ve even got a gallon of petrol.’

The engine died less than half an hour later
just as the small boat they had sighted earlier passed them heading
in the other direction. It was a sloop and looked to be in poor
condition. The vessel wasn’t close enough to hail but two people
could be plainly seen sitting in the cockpit. Captain Rivers
trained the glasses on her transom. Under the crusted salt and
grime he could just make out her markings.

She was the
Groote Eylandt Lady
.

The Darwin Civil Hospital near Myilly Point
was almost brand new, having recently replaced a decrepit old
facility on the same site. It was widely regarded as one of the
most modern and well equipped in Australia. In spite of being
severely damaged by bombs during the first raid, the police and the
military brought in a steady stream of casualties throughout the
day. Most of the badly wounded were dock-workers or sailors from
ships sunk in the harbor. There were scores of men suffering bullet
and shrapnel wounds and scores more blackened and burnt from bomb
blasts and burning oil. Doctors and medical staff were stretched
beyond their limits and were grateful for any volunteer assistance
they could get.

After Sergeant Maxwell had dropped Faith off,
she worked continuously all through the afternoon and night. She
labored hard and willingly, soothing the wounded awaiting
treatment, holding candles for doctors performing operations
without electric power, and disposing of the seemingly endless bags
of soiled medical dressings in incinerators outside the building.
Faith even surprised herself at what she was capable of in the face
of so much bloodshed and human suffering.

By the early hours of the morning the
hospital seemed to have the worst of the emergency cases under
control. Everyone, including Faith, was exhausted. Then word came
through that because of the risk of another air raid at first light
on the nearby Larrakeyah Army Barracks and the possibility of the
hospital being hit yet again, all patients were to be moved to the
military hospital at Berrimah several miles away. Army vehicles
began arriving just before dawn to transfer hundreds of seriously
wounded patients on stretchers.

Faith rode over to the military
hospital in a truck with a number of badly burned sailors from
the
USS Peary.
Some of them
were so young they were still in their teens. At Berrimah, she
helped to carry them inside and get them settled into the hospital.
With all the beds already filled, many by patients transferred from
another hospital at the RAAF station which had been hit badly in
the second raid, casualties from the Civil Hospital were put on
mattresses scattered around on the floor in corridors and outside
on verandas.

It was mid-morning when Sergeant Maxwell
found Faith, almost dead on her feet, helping to prepare food in
the hospital kitchen. On the way home to the sergeant’s house she
fell asleep in the police van.

*

The wasn’t even a ripple on the sea
when a fresh north-easterly swept across Beagle Gulf around noon.
In seconds,
Faraway’s
listless
sails filled with air and the ketch came alive and charged
southward at almost eight knots.

The evacuees, who had gone below
earlier seeking relief from the searing midday sun, quickly came
back up on deck to feel the cooling wind on their skin. As the
mainland drew closer, Sunday and Monday climbed to vantage points
in the ratlines. But long before anyone sighted land, an ominous
pall of black smoke towering high in the sky was visible over the
Port of Darwin. Anxious to get home as fast as he could, Joe kept a
steady hand on the helm, never allowing
Faraway
to wander even a fraction off-course,
while Koko constantly trimmed the sails and Captain Rivers kept a
sharp lookout for Japanese raiders through raised
binoculars.

The wind held. Just before
sunset,
Faraway
shortened sail
and
glided into the Port of Darwin.
There
was a stunned silence on the deck of the ketch. The entire area was
devastated. Every strategic target seemed to have been demolished
in the raid. Only the leper colony on nearby Channel Island
appeared to have escaped the wholesale destruction. It was now
almost thirty hours since the Japanese warplanes had unleashed
their fury, but oil fires were still burning on the shore and the
port area was strewn with debris. As Joe spun the wheel to avoid
hitting some floating rubbish he was horrified to see a burnt,
bloated body break the surface of the oily water and realized that
the sea was still giving up her dead.

Joe steered past two naval launches
ferrying wounded military personnel to Catalina flying boats moored
in the harbor. Their crews looked surprised to see a private vessel
entering the harbor with children scattered around her decks.
As
Faraway
drew closer to what
remained of the wharf, Joe could see that the hospital ship
Manunda,
although badly damaged, was
taking on stretcher cases and preparing to sail. Beyond the
Manunda,
half the hull of the
steamer
Neptuna
lay partially
submerged on its side.
It had been blown in two when
her cargo of munitions blew up

From a distance it appeared that many
more casualties were laid out on the dock area. But as the ketch
drew closer, the putrid stench of decomposing flesh wafting over
the deck made it plain that the casualties on the shore were in
fact corpses, stacked up in piles like firewood. Suddenly all the
children began to cry and Joe told Koko to get them below. Moments
later, a naval launch drew alongside and an angry officer ordered
the
Faraway
out of the harbor
area.

Joe steered out
from the
shore and sailed toward the lower reaches of Frances Bay, past the
town’s pearling fleet anchorage, to a patch of shallow water close
to the edge of Darwin’s huge mangrove swamps. There Sunday and
Monday lowered the sails. Even before the anchor had taken hold,
all the passengers were anxious to get ashore. Joe called everyone
around him on the aft deck.