Yellow Pearl
Page 11
Beside the scar tree near the bend in the river … ’twas when they moved the mob on … before our time, we have our families to … much worse, other places … heard about the west coast massacre … can’t undo what’s been done, no matter how … both sides, dreadful deeds …
A shuddering sigh flows down Tante Johanna’s stiff back; she whispers to Mutter, whose eyes sparkle with unshed tears, and they push dark thoughts away, behind them. Then Tomas wakes with a start — whining, squirming, coughing — and the women at the picnic form a circle of concern, comparing symptoms, offering advice, keeping younger children away from the sickly baby.
Overhead, Heinrich knocks a stone that clatters into the men’s secretive conversation, chipping it to sudden silence. He flattens himself like Tischer hiding in the grass; feels his ankle being tugged from behind, turns with a smothered laugh (the adult’s mysterious conversation forgotten) and rattles down the slope in a rolling chasing game with other boys. They clatter through a scree of shells and river pebbles and splash across trickling water, boots muddy and damp.
The dozy afternoon slips into an early twilight of hazy grey skies, peach-gold and blush-pink. The black crow cries in the sky — waang, waang — and swoops low over a creek diverted, deep hollows water-filled for the creeping orchards. The swampy gum bends, the pale paperbark leans, silvery leaves reflecting in the shallow dam, wind ruffling the flat surface. A sleek platypus submerges in the whispering creek.
White gumtree dwellers no longer trap fish and eel in the water, or dig for murnong in the fertile ground. The abandoned midden rests surrounded by straggling gum trees, an orchard of Black Achan pear trees, a grand house sprawling sideways on a hill.
The clearing in the forest is troubled and uneasy.
Linda Carter is a Melbourne-based writer, traveler and former teacher. Her music and education features appeared in newspapers and magazines in the late 90s. She received ‘Highly Commended’ for a short story in 1999, then put writing ‘on hold’, dedicating the next decade to family and finances. Since 2008, Linda’s travel features and photographs have been published occasionally. Recent short story awards include one ‘Commended’, two ‘Highly Commended’, one ‘First Prize’, and publication in Stringybark Stories anthology, The Bridge.
Historical note: ‘Waldau’ — a German word meaning ‘a clearing in the forest’ — is now the suburb of East Doncaster in Melbourne, where my family moved in 1971. From the 1850s, German (and English) families cooperated and inter-married, established orchards and farms, founded schools and churches. The land had already been partially cleared by itinerant woodcutters and charcoal burners, and no longer used by the Wurendjeri (‘white gum tree dwellers’). Today’s Ruffey Lake Park offers historic buildings, photoboards, Monterey pine windbreaks, and the remains of a quarry, to help me re-imagine pioneer orchardists and farmers in these outer reaches of Port Phillip district
Water or Speed
— Karen Lethlean
I’d climb the giant River Gum out behind Gran’s shack and pretend to be the lookout boy on a pirate ship. “Aye, aye Capt’n’. Reefs ahoy! Make haste to the island of buried treasure!”
Slithering down was always worse than getting up there. Without fail I’d have splinters and bits of bark stuck in fingers, and stains on my skirt.
I’d run full pelt down the yard, upturned broom between my legs. “The horse has seen a snake and bolted, can’t stop him General.”
I’d slosh laundry water out to Nanna’s struggling vegetable garden, sudsy grey spillage slopped onto already half-dirty skirt, “Don’t worry ma’am, we’ll put out the fire. We are the district’s best station.” As the now empty bucket was carried inside I noticed, as if for the first time, how the light summer cotton skirt stuck to my leg, and flapped it about in a half-hearted attempts to dry the cloth. I’d become a butterfly.
“I’m way too fast for your net, you silly scientist.”
The bucket dangled between my legs and I tripped into the dust and skinned one knee. Drops of bright red blood began to stain my skirt hem as I peered out across the shimmering paddocks. It’s then I noticed the sleeping form of my grandmother. I crawled across the dirt path leaving a moist trail behind me. I am a snail! Waving my antennae I tried to hypnotise Nanna, but she snored on. I can see little flecks of dust under one eye, and a dribble from this morning’s soft boiled egg still on her chin; she snuffled but does not wake. Little, widely spaced grey hairs formed a small beard around her chin. I reached out to touch the hairs.
Nanna opened one eye. My antennae stiffened with fright. “Why do you have hairs on your chin?”
“Cause they keep my face warm at night.” She giggled and her teeth moved about.
“Your teeth are loose again, Nanna.”
“All the better to eat you with!”
I squeal and tumble backwards off the edge of the verandah.
“Heavens, go clean yourself, hurry up, you do realize that John is coming around to say good-bye. You do know where he is going?”
I shook my head and watched a lizard peer out from a crack between the house timbers.
“Off to the war. He’s going to fight in the islands, help stop the invasion.” The wrinkles on her face seemed suddenly deeper and I noticed a tear form. Nanna pulled a lacy handkerchief from an apron pocket and blew hard.
“He’s visiting Lewis’s new wife Bess, they got married before Lew left for the fighting in Europe …”
Uncle John always was one of her favourites; I remember Nanna’s fingers passing through his unruly curls as if she alone could fix some kind of order into their blonde mass. She’d say something like, “This is my second youngest, did well at school, played in the ruck.”
“The party’s on today isn’t it?”
Linda’s birthday, town was only five miles away, but there’s no way for me get there … except … unless. Fear prickled down from my scalp all the way to my little toes. I raced inside feeling as if I’ve just been pulled backwards through a hedge.
The Party; who will have a new dress? How many frills will be around the hem? Cakes, red drinks, playing boogieman after the adults have collected around the barbeque fire.
But the prickles stay.
Inside, the house is dark because Nanna has pulled down all the blinds in an effort to keep out today’s heat. I stumbled into my room; found the dress, more by feel than sight. My hair seemed unwilling to be collected into plaits when I heard the motorbike.
John had already kicked down the bike stand and was balancing the dusty thing on the gatepost. His hair was more unruly than ever, even with the new short, back and sides exposing what might have been a strip of pink neck, except for road grit. His goggles had kept dust off two white-eye circles.
“You look like an owl!”
“And g’day to you too, Shirl.”
Nanna was tiny against his frame, daubed out in his muddy coloured uniform.
“Hey Uncle John, you’d be invisible wearing that in the dam water. It would be a great place to hide.”
“Hope I am invisible up there in New Guinea, with the Japs on my tail.” He held my hand and rested the other palm on Nanna’s shoulder while we ambled inside.
I remembered what I should ask, but it’s a struggle to get words out, my lips have begun to tremble. “Will you take me to Linda’s party?” I felt as if inside me had turned to jelly.
Nan’s face registered surprise, because she has seen me cowering under a blanket riding on her old tractor tray, which struggled to get over twenty miles an hour, smoking and puffing like some sort of dragon. Not to mention the time I wet myself when old Fred rigged up that flying fox and shoved each of us kids into the bucket and let go.
But John just smiled and said, “Sure I’ll take you, if it’s okay with Gran, so long as you don’t panic half way or else I’ll strap you to the windmill and you can fly around in the wind until the war is over.”
“I’m not afraid,” I say, knowing that this is th
e biggest lie to come out of my mouth this side of Christmas. Nanna must have noticed my goose-pimpled arms.
Before the dread in my throat could sneak out I am inside collecting necessities: nightdress, toothbrush, clean underpants, handkerchief, colouring book, pencils, while I could hear serious adult murmurings.
“Just a flying visit, Mum.”
“Prayers — that’s all I can send you away with,” said Nanna. She wrinkled up her face and even I could see real pain. “Come home soon.”
I put my arms around my uncle’s waist and Nanna leant forward to kiss me just as he kicked the old motorbike into life. “Hang on Shirl, here we go.” Nanna is swallowed up in a dust cloud and I’m torn from her by rushing wind.
I’ve had his ribs in a death-grip. I am a koala bear caught in a hurricane. Bang! The bike backfires. I’m a cannon ball flying through the air, Bang! Someone’s shot me.
Uncle John turned his face around in the wind and shouted, “You right kid?” I opened my mouth to scream but nothing came out. Everything blurred past: telegraph poles, fences, houses that seemed castles when I walked — now they were mere shadows. I clamped my eyes shut and whispered a type of chant I imagine was spoken in ancient temples.
Eventually I realised we had slowed down and come to a stop. There was a new noise overriding the buzz from my ears, which was my cousins laughing and no doubt pointing with mirth at my uncle prised my fingers from his chest.
“Phew! I can breathe again. You were hanging on so tight I thought permanent damage might be done, how was I going to explain the dents in my uniform to the sergeant?”
John busied himself chaining the bike to the shed. Still unsure on my feet, I tumbled inside and saw the table covered with a huge orange iced cake with tiny ballet dancing figures in the centre. Jugs of cordial, bread with sprinkles of hundreds and thousands, and my stomach whirled around on an axis: I just made it out to the side garden.
Aunty Mel made up a cot in the sleep-out, put a wet rag on my head, and left a glass of flat lemonade and dry biscuits.
A soft voice woke me out of a sweaty half sleep, “Feeling better now, Shirl?” It’s Uncle John.
“Were you ever afraid of speed?”
“Never, I love speed. But I’ll tell you a secret, I’m scared of water. Lived all my life only able to go in up to my knees. Can’t swim a stroke. Any talk of getting yabbies in the dam sends me into a cold sweat.”
I could tell by the look on his face that this was the truth, not him just trying to make me feel better.
“Don’t ever go swimming without someone with you who can swim, promise me?”
“It’s alright Uncle John, I can swim like a fish.” We shook hands and I cried. I heard the motorbike roar, and fade.
I spent the rest of that summer trying to understand what happened on that ride. How I thought I was going to die.
Three years later I no longer leap, slide and become all kinds of things when I’m with Nanna. I’m in seventh grade at school. My feet are too big, my knees too knobbly, my arms seem to be the wrong size for my body and nothing seems to fit me anymore. Everything has become more serious, our world quieter. I bring library books to the shack: seems like a hundred years ago I was on that motorbike.
And I think of him, what it must be like in those jungles, on those islands, surrounded by water, maybe sloshing though lakes, crossing streams or rivers of mud, sitting in monsoon rain with giant puddles all around him. We did get some photograph post cards. He’d written nondescript messages on the back. Things like; ‘Merry Christmas’ or ‘Happy Easter’, and on the other side pictures of smiling faces in slouch hats, or women squatting in market places, next to piles of pineapples.
The postman dropped a bundle of mail and there’s a letter with the AIF crest, I recognised the same rising sun symbol from Uncle John’s slouch hat. Nanna concentrated for a long time, holding the thin paper out at arm’s length as if any closer would risk infection by a terrible disease hidden there. She stretched her old thin arms away from her as if trying to bring the important words into focus.
She crushed the letter after reading. “John’s dead,” was a nearly inaudible whisper and she turned a tear stained face away from me.
I smooth the letter and read:
Taken prisoner Rabaul … ship torpedoed by an allied submarine… prisoners battened down in hold… all drowned...
I swear just then I saw a cloud of dust along the track, and felt the prickling of my arms just like that day I asked to ride on his motorcycle.
Karen Lethlean was born in Perth in 1956. She is a triathlete and teacher at a Senior College. Writing has always an interest and is now proving an outlet for creativity. She has had some success with competitions and pieces being published in collections (most recently The Fake One appears in an anthology Journey: Experiences with Breast Cancer) has become a way to prove to students that teachers ‘can do it!’ She hopes to see her memoirs published some day.
Historical note: While my uncle’s World War 2 experiences were seldom discussed, they form the foundation of this story. As well as serving in the Pacific, Lethlean brothers were also members of the famous Rats of Tobruk. The central character is drawn from Uncle Alexander (Barney) a story-teller of childhood adventures in the WA wheat belt. I tried to deal with the impact on families subjected to tragic loss as a result of war. The motorcycle ride is also a representation of learning to ride a push-bike and trying to teach my own daughter that skill.
Editor’s note: The Japanese refused to mark prisoner of war ships with red crosses, as required under international law. In addition they packed merchant ships carrying war supplies with POWs. American submarines could not tell which ships were carrying POWs and which were not and thus sunk many ships carrying prisoners of war. For example, the SS Rakuyo Maru which had 700 Australian and 600 British POWs on board was torpedoed by USS Sealion II on 12 September 1944. 541 Australians and 478 British drowned.
About the Editor
David Vernon is a full-time writer and editor. While he is known for his nonfiction books about birth: Men at Birth, Having a Great Birth in Australia and With Women, he has turned his hand to writing science articles for newspapers and magazines as well as scribbling the odd short story or two. Some would emphasise the word ‘odd’. He is currently writing an Australian history book. He is the founder of the Stringybark Stories Short Story Awards. David’s website is: http://www.davidvernon.net
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Acknowledgements
A book is the creative output of many people and therefore please indulge me while I thank a few people. Firstly, thank you to the writers who have so willingly entered Stringybark Competitions and thus given me an opportunity to choose their writing for publication. Secondly, I thank my family for allowing me the time to select, edit and present to you this wonderful collection of stories. Thirdly, thank you Virginia Ross for being so kind as to proofread this e-book. Finally, my appreciation goes to John Ubinger for allowing me to use his stunning photo on the cover of the book.
Cover design: David Vernon http://www.davidvernon.net
Cover photo: John Ubinger
Proofreader: Virginia Ross
Other titles by David Vernon at Smashwords.com:
The Umbrella’s Shade and other award-winning stories from the Stringybark Short Story Award
Our Name Wasn’t Written — A Malta Memoir 1936–1943
Between Heaven and Hell and other award-winning stories from the Stringybark Flash Fiction Award
The Bridge and other stories from the Stringybark Short Story Award
The Heat Wave of ’76 and other award-winning stories from the Stringybark Erotic Fiction Award
Marngrook and other award-winning stories from the Stringybark Australian History Short Story Award
The Road Home and other award-winning stories from the Stringybark Short Story Award
Into the Darkness — One Australian airman’s journey from Sydney to the deadly skies over Germany — 1939–1945
Between the Sheets and other stories from the Stringybark Erotic Fiction Award
Tainted Innocence and other award-winning stories from the Twisted Stringybark Short Story Award
Yellow Pearl — eighteen stories from the Stringybark Australian History Awards
The Seven Deadly Sins and other stories from the Stringybark Seven Deadly Sins Award
Behind the Wattles — 77 award-winning short stories from the Stringybark Flash and Microfiction Awards
Hitler Did It — and other short stories from the Stringybark Short Story Awards
Fight or Flight — twenty award-winning stories from the Stringybark Young Adult Fiction Awards