The Widow & Her Hero (13 page)

By the end of August they had boarded the sub,
Orca
,
going north and largely living, officers and men, in the
torpedo room. How does one exist on a submarine so
severely overcrowded? How does a person sleep and keep
one's energy in the cramped, hot, dim daytimes of a submarine?
Mark Lydon gives a brief and superficial picture of
their two-week journey to the island named NE1, Serapem.
In the first days, within reach of Australian aircraft, they
were permitted on deck at night for a quarter-hour of
callisthenics while the bosun and messmen were preparing
the evening meal. Apart from that, it was the torpedo
compartment, where they hunched, did exercises in
batches, slept in batches, and ate communally of the
normal submarine diet of tinned herring, canned bacon
and tomato, powdered eggs and
haricots musicales
, as the
sailors called baked beans. The edgy Commander
Moxham, had explained to Doucette that as much as he
would have liked to entertain the other officers to his table,
he could fit only Doucette himself at the wardroom table.
Doucette decided, with appropriate thanks, he would be
better to have meals with his own officers and men. That
was, he said, the way it would be during the real part of the
operation.

Mark Lydon and government documents tell us that the
submarine got them to NE1, Serapem, east of Singapore, in
a little over two weeks. Rufus and a sailor went ashore at
night in a dinghy and stayed there throughout the next day.
Orca
had gone off into deeper water, but now returned in the
dark to signal to the shore by lamp and so to pick Rufus and
the sailor up. Coming aboard again, Rufus declared NE1
was perfect – a good landing beach to the east, a hill for
watching and a swamp for concealment, and deserted except
for a few structures on the west side.

During the rest of the night the Memerang group and
the sailors of the watch transferred loads of supplies up
through the forward hatches to the deck and onto a large
inflatable raft which the Memerang men then rowed
ashore. Well before dawn, canisters of food and equipment
were safely concealed on the flanks of the island's hill and,
as he always planned, Doucette left one officer at NE1,
Serapem, to dig in the supplies and await the return of the
raiding party for Singapore. The officer he had chosen was
my cousin Captain Melbourne Duckworth, son of a devout
admirer of that southern city.

Everyone else boarded
Orca
again and went hunting for
a suitable junk. On the coast of Borneo, Moxham sighted
a junk named
Nanjang
, and invited Doucette and Rufus to
inspect it through the periscope. They both declared it
perfect for their needs. When
Orca
surfaced, the Malay
crew of the 40-ton junk thought them a Japanese submarine
and so merely prepared for inspection. The junk was
boarded and the fairly amiable crew were transferred to the
submarine and made secure, taking the place of
the Memerang men who were getting ready to board the
Nanjang
, with its rather spectacular feature of a Japanese
flag painted across its stern. Over a frantic night, as a
nervous Moxham fretted on his conning tower, all that was
needed to raid Singapore with Silver Bullets and perform
great warrior endeavours was loaded on the junk. The
Nanjang
crew would be delivered back to Western
Australia and interned.
Orca
would then return to collect
Doucette and his men.

At dawn, the submarine departed and submerged,
leaving over twenty men on the junk, whose marine master
was lantern-jawed Rufus Mortmain. The junk was turned
for Singapore and the trades filled its lateen sails.

Throughout the rest of the winter of 1944, Dotty and I
were still working and living in the communal flat. We had
the comfort of knowing that Foxhill would tell us what
was happening if he learned anything, since he'd done that
in the case of Leo's father. I found it hard to discipline
myself – not to call him every day, to check, especially since
at the end of August Creed had whispered to Dotty in the
office, Your husband's on his way.

We both had a date in mind as the longest we'd have to
wait. It was December 10. Independently of each other,
Rufus and Leo had told Dotty and me that by then at the
latest they'd be back.

It was a rainy Melbourne winter and at night Dotty and
I soothed ourselves with gin because it was hard to sleep.
Dotty was writing a lot but was secretive about it all. I
wrote a fair amount myself, but it was sporadic, it took
many stages of concentration for me to get started. And
often I'd be just started when Dotty would insist, as if our
sanity depended on it and in a way it was hard to refuse,
that we had to go out to the Albert Palais or one of the
canteens to dance with soldiers. I thought she would be
very selective about rank, being British, but while I sat on
the balcony drinking a shandy, she proved that sergeants
and corporals were not unworthy of her company. I could
not have a good time on a dance floor, I decided. It was as
if all my sensuality was bundled up with Leo, and was
suspended pending his return. (Sometimes these days I fear
it's been bundled up all my life. I hope my second husband
got a return on his desire and devotion.)

Anyhow, we didn't analyse those things then – we acted
them out, and as it was obvious that I was a sort of icy
widow-for-the-duration on the balcony, it was obvious too
that Dotty was available for comforting. Again, I didn't
blame her. I envied her the distraction.

Every day I went off to the military transport office job
I had, and deadened myself with routine work and small
office filing confusions. The Melbourne football Grand
Final came and went as a marker between seasons, and
Foxhill could tell us nothing. We found this a bad sign
because we believed that however confident he insisted on
sounding, there was an edge of bemusement to him too.
The weather turned warm, but it was an empty, anxious
warmth to Dotty and me. Captain Foxhill organised for us
to attend the Members Enclosure for that year's Melbourne
Cup, and gin and expectation gave us a few hours' respite
until a horse named Sirius galloped over the line and we
tore our betting tickets up and the vacuum returned.

I remembered that Jesse Creed, the American, had been
involved in some way too. But Dotty assured me she had
heard nothing from him. Sometimes, she said, I get the
impression they're all keeping some big secret. And I
suppose the bastards are. But I think Jesse would tell me if
he knew anything.

December arrived. When I felt hope it was feverish.
Plain, flat, humid days set in, carrying no omens and dry of
promise. Thunderstorms and dust swept down from the
north onto the city. Foxhill and his wife visited us for a
drink on December 2. I tried to gauge whether he knew
anything he wasn't telling us, but he seemed just as uncertain
as we were. He did not promise us quick news or
mention dates. But he did say, When we hear, it will be
sudden. Like a thunderclap.

Four days later, on the proposed date of their return, he
was back with the news that they were missing. He stood
bald-headed and genuinely saddened under the tatty, crepe
Christmas streamers and Christmas bells we had hung in
the flat. They're all military personnel, he assured us, so if
captured they'd be POWs, every chance of survival.

At what point of things did they go missing? I asked.

I can't say, Foxhill claimed. I don't know myself.

But radio messages? asked Dotty. They would have sent
a radio message if they were in trouble.

No, Foxhill insisted. They haven't. Look, for all we
know they might have taken some native vessel and be on
the way home as we speak.

Don't play us for fools, Dotty warned him, her eyes
blazing.

But I was rather taken with Foxhill's scenario.

Of course, he said, he would tell us as soon as he got any
more definite news. He invited us both to his place for a
lunch, and I said how kind that was and that we would see
if we were free, but when he left Dotty told me, with tears in
her eyes, Bugger playing happy families! Did you sense this
would happen? I could sense it. Bloody Rufus! I knew it!

We stayed in that night talking and comforting and
sobbing and all the hopeless rest. I felt a mad urge to go out
looking, as if he could be found in quiet streets running
back from the Yarra. Next day we went to work, and kept
our news secret. Dotty arrived home after me and cried
out, To hell with staying in and moping. Let's just go out to
the Windsor for dinner.

For some reason it seemed exactly the right thing. We
dressed, and made ourselves up and called a taxi.

As we walked up the stairs of the hotel we could hear the
festive buzz from within the dining room. The Windsor had
that pleasant young woman in black who met us at the
doorway of the restaurant and told us there that sadly there
was no table available until a quarter to nine. Indeed the
tables seemed all taken, by military men and well-dressed
women. Dotty obviously felt a primal rage at this unknowing
girl, because I felt the same. Dotty told her in a voice
thin as a skewer to fetch the head waiter. She fled and got
him. He sailed up, a tall man, with his forced smile on his
lips, and asked dubiously whether he could help us.

Dotty said in the same thinned-out, furious voice which
had compelled the young woman, Our husbands have just
been reported missing in action. All we want is a meal. Just
get us a table. And not one in a broom cupboard somewhere.
A decent table. Otherwise we'll yell the roof in.

He looked at me for help, as the one with the less turbulent
features.

We're fed up, I confirmed. Why aren't half these home
front warriors missing in action, and not our husbands?

As I spoke I saw a change come over his face. No longer
the bland bestower of tables, he nodded at me and a weariness
of grief entered his own features. He too had been the
receiver of frightful news. He had dead or lost children. He
said he sympathised with us, and of course he would try to
find us a table. Just give him a minute.

I thanked him. But I was not the same woman as before.
I was unabashed by Dotty's act, and by my own. But it had
taken a lot out of us. Dotty dealt with every suggestion of
the elderly waiters with a high, clipped voice, whereas I
wasn't sure what anyone was saying to me. Two British
naval officers seated nearby were quick to move in and ask
if they could join us. The wifely primness, if that was what
it was, that had sustained me up to the point of knowing
Leo was actually officially missing, not merely hiding
somewhere in some archipelago, seemed to have simply run
out. I could not be bothered telling them to go away, not in
the face of Dotty's manic, serial-smoking, serial-drinking
eagerness for the diversion they offered.

They were from a British cruiser presently in Melbourne,
and the elder of the two did not seem to be able to believe
his luck in finding a sparkling-eyed Dotty, full of a stored
energy he hoped was sexual. He wasn't as good as the
younger officer in sensing that there was really something
demented about us. This time, I could tell, Dotty would
find comfort in repelling and punishing him in the end. The
younger one held junior rank to the other but possessed
immensely more sensibility. It would count against his ever
becoming an admiral, I suppose, though I doubt he ultimately
wanted that anyhow. My young officer was so
lacking in expectation that I was able to talk to him about
real things, and it was pleasant.

And then we saw the Enrights. They came from a table
at the back of the dining room to the dance floor. They
began dancing with an easy, casual grace, Major Enright
light on his feet. Mrs Enright had stayed in Melbourne with
him and had won her battle and was in clear, quietly
triumphal possession.

Excuse me, gentlemen, Dotty told our two officers. I've
just seen the man who might have killed my husband.

This had the mouth-gaping effect on them that she
wanted. She stood and advanced onto the dance floor. She
could handle her drink well, Dotty, in fact she would later
write a poem to gin. 'My constant lover and traducer,/
noble in promise, squalid in effect,/companion of verse and
bedrooms . . .'

The Enrights' dance-floor connubiality was about to be
dive-bombed, and I'm ashamed to say it was fascinating
to watch. Dotty reached out and tapped Major Enright's
shoulder playfully. He responded just as she wanted. He
backed away from his wife, who still nonetheless carried a
lacquered smile.

I could see Dotty ask him for a dance. How could a
desk-born warrior respond when he had made the plans,
as willingly as Rufus and Leo had gone along with them?
He obviously wished this was not happening, but he
turned to his wife and asked her to wait for him at their
table.

In Enright's suddenly stiff hands, Dotty grew loose-
haired and sinuous and eager. With the threat she might
become shameless, she swung herself with a lover's confidence
in his arms, fell back on his breast, twirled back to
face him. She nibbled his ear, pulling languorously on the
lobe. She cut off any impulse on his part to turn and
explain to his wife that he was dealing with a mad woman;
she whispered in his ear, hung her head back and laughed
at the dance-floor lights, lowered her head onto his
campaign ribbons, the strands of her hair becoming mixed
in with the vivid flashes of his merit and service awards.

When the music stopped, Dotty kissed him fulsomely,
and I looked to Mrs Enright's table, but she was gone. Our
officers had sat through this display, but it convinced them
that we were unreliable goods, and they were pleased to
find a taxi for us soon after and send us home.

I didn't try to chastise Dotty. I'd lost the confidence
for that. And I was too much in awe of her work. It had
been a calamitous night, yet I delighted in her irrational
vengeance on the safely wed, clad and housed Enrights.
When we got out of the taxi at our block of flats, she sat
on the brick wall in front of the building and looked up and
down the empty street, as if at any moment Rufus and Leo
and Doucette might roll by, yelling greetings to us.