The Turning Tide (16 page)

‘Thanks. She’s a good woman. Stood by me when I wasn’t handling things very well.’ He loses his train of thought for a moment, then carries on. ‘She’s Chinese, name’s Suyin –’

‘Oh? My godmother was Chinese.’

‘How did that happen?’

‘Long story, another time … go on.’

‘So I haven’t told anyone here about it. Didn’t seem right to announce it in a letter, and this is the first time I’ve seen Lena in a year. But now I don’t know where to begin.’

‘How old’s the baby?’

‘Two months. Name’s Jessica. I was pretty cranky the other night because I haven’t had much sleep.’

‘Should have realised you weren’t a prick naturally.’

He smiles wryly. ‘You see, Lena’s changed, grown up, and sometimes it’s like I hardly know her. I thought you might have some idea how she’ll handle it.’

‘Are you worried she might not take to a Chinese stepmother? Kids are a lot easier with other cultures nowadays.’

‘No, it’s not Suyin, she gets on with everyone. It’s Jessie. I’m afraid Lena’ll feel she’s – I don’t know – been displaced.’

I thought for a moment. ‘Are your wife and baby around?’

‘Yeah. We’re staying at a hotel in the city.’

‘Babies are nice. Why not just introduce everyone? Lena’d probably find a new little sister interesting. Cute, even.’ I laugh at myself. ‘Jesus, what would I know? I’m sorry, I think you’re on your own here. But you should tell her soon. The longer you wait …’

He nods thoughtfully. The waiter brings our meals.

‘But I do know one thing,’ I say, tucking in. ‘She’s a good-hearted girl.’ I suddenly feel certain. ‘I think it’ll be all right, Ian. I really do.’

‘Oh, hell.’ He puts his fork down. ‘I’ve realised something.’

I look up. He’s flushed, embarrassed, seems younger.

‘What is it?’ I ask, puzzled.

‘I’m an idiot. Sorry.’ He’s annoyed at himself. ‘It’s not Lena feeling displaced. It’s me. Lately all I’ve heard is Mike this and Mike that. As if you’re – I don’t know – her father now.’

‘Nah. It’s the other way round,’ I say. ‘Lena’s adopted me. Treats me like a sparrow that’s fallen out of the nest onto its head, so it’s not very bright.’

He laughs aloud. ‘That’d be her.’

It’s easy after that, and as we’re leaving at the end of the meal Ian shakes my hand.

‘Mike. Could I ask a favour?’ he says. ‘Would you be there when Lena meets the baby? So she doesn’t feel outnumbered. You can tell us about your godmother too, Suyin’d like that.’

‘Dunno, I’m famous for boring people half to death with reminiscences.’

Then I think: (1) Help Johnny’s family. (2) Accept hand of friendship.

I add, ‘But, yeah, suppose I could come along.’

‘I’ll talk to her first so it’s not too much of a shock. Then later we can all go to dinner with Suyin and the baby. Here’s the address. Seven sharp tomorrow?’

I almost go, ‘Yes, sir,’ and salute. He’s a lad used to command.

After interviews at Canungra with a couple of blokes who seemed to take themselves very seriously, Johnny, Alan and me, plus the irrepressible Kanga, started on the long dusty trip back to Darwin in June 1943: train to Mount Isa and truck for interminable days through the Territory.

We’d been assigned to the Lugger Maintenance Section, which we soon discovered was a godforsaken outpost south of Darwin. It was not much more than a cluster of army huts in the mangroves, with a few jetties and slipways. By the time we’d had a look around even Kanga was subdued.

The Services Reconnaissance Department, part of the Allied Intelligence Bureau, was under the control of General MacArthur, Supreme Commander Southwest Pacific Area, and our own General Blamey. It sounded impressive but we slowly realised it was a breathtakingly inept exercise, run mainly for the benefit of the empire builders in Melbourne.

Alf had been right. To my disappointment there were no luggers at the LMS, though there were a number of good boats laid up around Darwin Harbour. Typically, SRD had turned its back on the real thing and decided to build its own armed ‘native craft’ for twenty times the cost.

We settled in. There was nothing much to do but work or lie around. The sandflies left excruciating itches, the mangroves were full of crocodiles and in the wet season the beautiful harbour swarmed with invisible jellyfish that could kill a man in minutes.

We’d only been there a few months when we saw Alf again. He was leaving for Timor with a Portuguese guerrilla group on a mission called Lagarto. That name would haunt me for years.

Soon afterwards SRD carried out the Jaywick raid, in which commandos from an old boat called
Krait
sank seven cargo ships in Singapore. The success sent a thrill of optimism through the LMS. But to Alan and Johnny’s disgust we were kept well out of those front-line ops, instead put to training Timorese and Portuguese guerrillas. We helped some of the other missions – native soldiers, coastwatchers, island operatives – but very few of them were as successful as Jaywick. The mood at LMS slowly became less optimistic.

My Japanese-speaking abilities turned out to be of little use after all, except to question the occasional downed Japanese pilot for a few days before they sent him on to the prison camp at Cowra. I never found out anything very interesting.

A second mission, codenamed Cobra, left for Timor. Kanga was friends with Dosh, one of the men. We were relieved to be told transmissions were coming in from both Lagarto and Cobra, but we didn’t see the messages themselves as they were sent directly to Harbury, the Melbourne mansion that was SRD operations headquarters.

In early 1944, Kanga and I were told out of the blue we were being reassigned to SRD in Melbourne. I was sorry to leave Alan and Johnny behind, and they were furiously envious of my good luck, but after seven tedious months in Darwin I was desperate for a change.

In Melbourne I was at last able to use my Japanese for translating intercepts, which I thoroughly enjoyed. I thought of visiting Foster but couldn’t face the idea of lying to Helen about Johnny, so didn’t. I started going out with a girl called Rita, one of the intercepts operators. We had fun but it was nothing serious.

In Melbourne too, Kanga dropped the silly noises, combed his hair and developed an amazing facility for getting promotions. It went very well with his skill of discovering what was happening before anyone else even suspected.

In May 1944, Timor section staff called Kanga and me to their office. They wanted us to confirm whether transmissions coming from Timor were being sent by Alf and Dosh themselves. This wasn’t as hard as it might sound – Morse code hands were as unique as fingerprints – and after we’d listened to the tapes we agreed, our boys were definitely sending the messages.

But later in the mess I said to Kanga, ‘Something didn’t seem right about Alf’s messages. Did you pick that up?’

‘Yeah. Why was he going on about some village festival? And always sending from the same place, not moving around. That doesn’t make sense if the Japs are chasing them.’

‘Alf told me they’d promised to get him out after three months. He’d just got married. But here it is – what? – nine
months after insertion? And he’s not asking to come home? I don’t like it, Kanga.’

‘Another thing: Dosh was always a stickler about using the authenticator every transmission. But this was random, and only when SRD reminded him to use it. That’s not like him.’

We looked at each other. ‘We’d better say something,’ I said.

The head of the Timor section was a civilian, a prickly old Asia hand. We told him what was making us uneasy about the messages we’d heard. He gazed coolly at us then burst into laughter.

‘Look, boys,’ he said gently, ‘SRD’s hit a few bumps lately. This intelligence, from our two most successful missions behind enemy lines, is something we’ve badly needed. I’d go so far as to say it’s our finest achievement; certainly mine. I’m very proud of those brave lads. Nothing wrong with them.’

‘Sir, but what if they’re compromised?’

He looked at me with growing dislike. ‘I said, Lance Sergeant Whalen, there’s no problem here. Right?’

‘Yes, sir.’

I stupidly told another officer my worries over lunch one day. Kanga came to see me that afternoon.

‘Bad news, Broome. They’ve decided you’ll be more use to the war effort back in Darwin. You leave tomorrow.’

‘You’re joking!’ I said.

‘Sorry, fella. I’ll try to keep an eye on this bloody mess, but it’s clearly not a wise career move to go up against SRD Holy Writ.’

I hardly had time to say goodbye to Rita before starting on the long, boring trek back to Darwin. Wise Kanga, bounding over the political minefields, stayed behind in comfortable Melbourne.

Once I was back at the Lugger Maintenance Section in mid-1944, I only had a short time to catch up with Alan and Johnny. Their hopes of commando ops in Timor had gone by the wayside over the last sandfly-ridden year in Darwin, so instead they’d wangled assignments as trainers at the Z Special Unit school on Fraser Island.

‘Nice work if you can get it,’ I grumbled. ‘Tropical islands, Great Barrier Reef, the worst thing you’ll have to worry about is sunburn.’

Johnny stopped packing for a moment to throw something at me. ‘Jeez, we deserve it. You wouldn’t believe what it’s been like here while you’ve been swanning around South Yarra. Hey, did you go down to Foster at all?’

‘Nah. Thought about it, but I was too busy winning the war from an armchair in the drawing room.’

When I told them how I’d run afoul of official complacency about the security of the Timor missions, Alan shook his head in amazement.

‘When I joined up I knew there were a few idiots in command,’ he said, ‘but give or take, I assumed they knew what they were doing. Now I’m thinking I’ve never seen such self-interested, incompetent officers, and the longer the war goes on the more of them there are. What the hell’s going on, Mike?’

‘I dunno. Guess the main thing now is to shut up and survive. It may all be over soon. The Japs are in shit everywhere.’

‘Not enough shit, the bastards,’ said Johnny. ‘And they’re clinging on like grim death. Jeez I’d love another crack at ’em.’

Alan nodded in agreement.

‘Look, you two thugs, you’re going somewhere a lot more pleasant than here. Make the best of it. Don’t go asking for trouble.’

‘Just one more crack,’ said Johnny.

‘Idiots,’ I said. Lovingly.

Alan and Johnny left and I settled back into LMS life. I heard shortly afterwards that the obnoxious Timor head who’d got rid of me had been bumped sideways. There were whispers of a stunning breach of intelligence but no details.

SRD sent another mission to Timor, codenamed Adder, which seemed to disappear without a trace. Then they went ahead with Rimau, a large raid on Singapore shipping, but twenty-three good men simply vanished. After that SRD pulled in its horns for a time.

Then, at last, something interesting happened. SRD began building a powerful new radio station for traffic from all over Asia. The receivers were based at Leanyer, outside Darwin. I was in a small group assigned to help set up and operate the equipment and it fascinated me. My suggestions on technical improvements helped me get a promotion to sergeant.

At the end of 1944 I had a week’s leave with my family in Perth. I could see my parents were much happier now I wasn’t on the front line. They’d always loved playing Irish fiddle music together but last time I’d been home they hadn’t
touched their instruments. Now in the evenings I’d hear the lilt of tunes from my childhood and my parents laughing together and I’d feel safe. Harboured.

Liam was happy too. Wartime wasn’t easy for an artist but he was always able to make the best of it. Anna was the one who worried me. There were lines of fatigue around her eyes and a bitter turn to her mouth. She was a nursing sister now, carrying a weight of responsibility: the flow of casualties never ended. When she had a rare day off, I took her to dinner at a restaurant as a treat.

She looked pretty, in a blue velvet dress with a neat little hat, and I said, ‘That table of blokes near the door can’t take their eyes off you.’

She smiled wryly and said, ‘Do I care? I’ve had it with men.’

‘Why, some swine steal your heart?’ I teased.

She looked down. ‘You could say that. There was a man, a patient, who recovered. We were pretty serious. But he hadn’t recovered after all. Got a secondary infection and died within hours.’

‘Oh Anna, I’m so sorry.’

She blinked and took a breath. ‘That wasn’t really the worst of it. A lot of the girls have lost someone.’ She shrugged. ‘But about six months later I met another man. A doctor, so at least he was healthy.’ She smiled crookedly. ‘Trouble was, he was a bastard. Strung me along, wife back home, the old story.’

‘Sis. That’s
rotten
,’ I said.

‘Yes. Couldn’t work for a few weeks. Matron was good, gave me sick leave. I’m all right now, but, you see, not really in the mood for romance.’

Half-joking, I said, ‘I’ll beat him up for you if you’d like.’

She looked at me in amazement. ‘God no. But you would, wouldn’t you?’

I thought for a moment. ‘Guess so. I’ve learnt a lot of heavy-arm stuff, comes easily now.’

‘Do you think that’ll always be with you?’

‘I hope not. There’s a lot of memories I’d like to jettison, especially from Timor. It’s odd, but it’s getting harder as time goes by, not easier.’

‘Nightmares?’

‘They come and go.’ I hesitated. ‘A little boy, my
criado
, and a woman I knew. They’re on a beach at night and there’s something terrifying coming up behind them, but I can’t get a sound out of my throat. The other men say I wake them up yelling.’

‘Oh Mike, I’m so sorry.’ She shook her head slowly. ‘I don’t think our generation will ever recover from this … this … obscenity.’

‘Maybe after enough time has passed –’

‘No. I see men Dad’s age still suffering from the Great War. Not physically, though there’s enough of them too.’ She said suddenly, furiously, ‘I’ll never forgive them,
never
.’

‘Who?’