Territory

by Judy Nunn

  Commandeur Pelsaert now assured her that strong disciplinary measures would be taken, that men would be flogged and Jan Evertsz slapped in irons to await trial. Lucretia found herself interrupting.

  ‘No, Francisco, that is not the way.’ He stopped mid-sentence. Surely the woman wished to seek vengeance. ‘It is what they want, I am sure of it. Cause to rise against you. It might well be why certain rumours were set in place from the outset.’

  He knew of a sudden that she was right. The two of them had never spoken of the slander which abounded with regard to their relationship, but each had known that the other was aware of its existence. Who was setting about to cause such dangerous mischief, Pelsaert wondered, and to what purpose? But Lucretia was right. In the light of his illness and his estrangement from the crew, Pelsaert knew that if he brought further and heavier punishment down upon the men he would risk a revolt.

  ‘We will avenge these terrible acts upon your person,’ he assured her, ‘when we are safely in port.’ He was lost in admiration for the woman’s dignity as she took her leave and departed his cabin.

  Lucretia credited the preservation of her sanity to one thing and one thing only. The locket. If it had not been for the locket, during those hours between the attack and her discovery, she was convinced she would either have thrown herself into the sea or gone stark raving mad. The locket was her saviour. If she could withstand the abomination of the preceding night then she could withstand anything; the locket had decreed it so.

  She kept well away from the men, fetching her meals directly from the galley and eating them alone in the small alcove allotted her; Zwaantie, her maid, had long since deserted her for the company of Adriaen Jacobsz. The only person with whom Lucretia communicated was Pelsaert, and the only time she ventured on deck was when she was in his company.

  The mutineers were momentarily thwarted, their plan had gone awry. What had happened to the heavy punishments Pelsaert was expected to have meted out, the prospect of which Cornelisz had particularly relished. They had been on the threshold of taking over the ship, Pelsaert’s fury had been all they needed.

  But it was a force above that of their Commandeur, and above that of their own mutinous actions, which would decide the destiny of the Batavia. The force of the elements themselves.

  It was two hours before dawn and, under full sail with the southerlies behind her, the Batavia cut smoothly through the slight swell, her decks deserted but for the steersman and night watch, the Commandeur and his passengers sleeping soundly below.

  Two other figures leaned on the lee rail also keeping watch: the captain, Adriaen Jacobsz and Hans Bosschieter, the gunner. On the open seas, with a mild swell, the watch was relaxed, no masthead lookouts had been ordered to their posts, and the two men were chatting, enjoying the balminess of the night air.

  ‘Jesu!’ Jacobsz suddenly exclaimed as he thought he saw white water ahead. ‘Breakers!’

  Hans Bosschieter peered into the distance. The moon was fickle, appearing and disappearing amongst the clouds overhead. ‘No, skipper,’ he said reassuringly, ‘it’s only the moonshine on the water.’

  Jacobsz relaxed. Of course, what else could it be? The dreaded Houtman Abrolhos, the reefy islands which had seen the destruction of many a vessel, lay far to the east. They were still a good 600 miles from the Great South Land, the way ahead was perfectly clear. He thought of Zwaantie lying in his bunk, warm and inviting, he would join her at dawn.

  Zwaantie was a very obliging mistress, only too willing to indulge him in any way he pleased. No longer in the service of the haughty whore van den Mylen, she had been won by his promises that he would make her a fine lady. An impossibility, Jacobsz grinned to himself, but he would keep the girl for as long as she satisfied him, and the thought of Zwaantie’s huge breasts brought a stirring to his loins.

  Jacobsz’s lecherous musings were interrupted as he was thrown violently against the lee rail; Hans Bosschieter too was caught off balance and clutched at a mast stay to keep from falling.

  With the horrifying sound of rending timbers and rudder bolts being torn apart, the Batavia met the reef. She staggered drunkenly forwards, crashing and lurching. Relentlessly, she struggled on, as if with all her great might she could plough her way through the object set in her path. But she couldn’t. And finally, trembling with the shock of her own destruction, she heeled to starboard and settled in a mist of spray, the white water churning angrily about her hull.

  Even in the instant of disaster, Jacobsz recognised his mistake. In losing the convoy he had become complacent, he had failed to keep accurate track of his ship’s latitude. They were several degrees off course, too far to the south, and these were the treacherous reefs of the Abrolhos.

  He cursed himself as he rounded on Bosschieter. ‘That was surf not moonlight, you fool! God’s death!’

  Pelsaert appeared on deck. He’d been thrown from his bunk in the collision and presented a rather ludicrous figure in his nightgown as he now hurled abuse at Jacobsz.

  Jacobsz, in turn, hurled accusations at Bosschieter, as passengers, soldiers and sailors poured out onto the deck, Lucretia amongst them, terrified at the sight of their ship in her death throes and the booming surf which surrounded them.

  On 4 June 1629, little more than seven months after leaving the port of Amsterdam, the proud Batavia had foundered on the infamous islands of the Houtman Abrolhos.

  Since meeting Aggie Marshall, Henrietta’s life had changed irrevocably. She hadn’t realised until now how lonely she’d been, and she blossomed. Her visits to Darwin increased until she was making the trip once a week. She even stayed overnight occasionally, at Marrinah House, a tasteful hostel for women located on the Esplanade not far from Aggie’s house. She’d declined Aggie’s offer to stay with her.

  ‘Good heavens, Henrietta,’ Aggie said time and again, ‘it’s such a waste of money. And I have one of the few remaining houses in the whole of Darwin (a slight exaggeration, Henrietta thought), so why not let me put it at your disposal.’ No, she didn’t wish to impose, Henrietta insisted. Secretly, she was very much enjoying her independence.

  For the first month or so she had kept waiting for Terence to call a halt to her new life of freedom, but strangely enough he hadn’t. He seemed genuinely happy for her. She’d invited him to come with her to the first dance she’d attended for the returning POWs, aware that he would not have allowed her to go on her own, and he’d satisfied himself that there was no cause for alarm. Between Aggie and that strange Paul Trewinnard she was quite adequately chaperoned, Terence decided, and besides, he’d been bored witless watching his wife shuffle around the dance floor with emaciated soldiers.

  ‘It’s a very nice thing for you to do, my darling, I’m quite happy for you to go on your own in future,’ he’d generously agreed. So Henrietta kept up her weekly visits to Darwin and happily devoted the rest of her time to her son and to keeping the books in order at Bullalalla, a task which she undertook with all seriousness, determined to ‘run a smooth ship’ as Margaret used to say.

  Terence had little reason for complaint, the change in Henrietta delighted him. She was once more full of the spirit and enthusiasm which had first attracted him. Totally unaware of the influence his unpredictable moods had had upon his young wife, Terence decided that she’d become withdrawn over the past few years because of her isolation and the depressive presence of his mother.

  Terence didn’t miss his parents for one minute. He thought of his father as dead, it was easier that way. More pleasant to remember Jock Galloway as the hero he’d been. Terence was thoroughly enjoying being the boss of Bullalalla. He’d employed a full-time overseer and intended to return Bullalalla station to its pre-war grandeur.

  His first mission in doing so had been to rid his land of the eyesores which remained as reminders of army occupation. The roads built by the military had been left littered with remnants of their camps, from abandoned huts and equipment to old jeeps and staff cars. Terence took
what he could use and disposed of the rest. He was free to do so, the Government having set in motion a strategy called the Marshall Plan as a preventative to profiteering. The plan dictated that, in the interests of the country’s economy, there was to be no selling off of army or air force equipment, and that all military property was to be left in the scrub to rot. The plan even went so far as to allow planes to be shoved overboard from ships and buried at the bottom of Darwin Harbour. Nobody was to profit from the sale of parts.

  Following the cleaning up of his property, the next priority on Terence’s agenda was the Bullalalla Races. Their re-introduction, he decided, would prove to everyone just who was the king in these parts. The June 1946 ‘Victory’ Bullalalla Races would go down in local history.

  ‘The Bullalalla Races, good heavens. So there’s to be a return to normalcy so soon after the war, I’m most impressed.’

  Henrietta was never quite sure how to take Paul Trewinnard. She sometimes wondered whether his air of cynicism was just an act or whether he really was as world-weary as he appeared. And she wondered now whether his comment was indeed cynical or whether he actually was impressed. He was a confusing man.

  ‘Terence is very excited about it,’ she said a little defensively, ‘and he said I’m to ask my new friends as official family guests. And that means you two.’ She directed her words to Paul, despite the fact that Aggie was sitting beside her.

  ‘Me too?’ Paul deliberately misunderstood.

  ‘You two!’ Henrietta emphasised with frustration, including Aggie.

  ‘Oh, you mean me and Aggie.’ Lightening dawned.

  ‘Don’t listen to him, Henrietta,’ Aggie said dismissively. ‘I’ll be there of course, wouldn’t miss it for the world, you’ll drive me, won’t you, Paul?’

  ‘Delighted of course. How exciting.’ Paul had been to the Bullalalla Races before the war, in Jock’s time, and had enjoyed himself very much. He’d simply turned up, however, along with the hundreds of others who’d done so, he hadn’t been formally invited. ‘An official family guest, thank you,’ he said, ‘what an honour.’ He meant it sincerely, he couldn’t help it if others misread him.

  ‘You must bring Foong Lee too,’ Henrietta said. She’d met Foong Lee on a number of occasions and, although she didn’t know him particularly well, she was aware that he was a very close friend of Paul’s.

  The three of them were lolling around in Aggie’s untidy study, a preliminary meeting of the ‘rebuilding of Darwin’ subcommittee in progress. Except that they hadn’t progressed, Henrietta having been so excited about delivering her invitation that she’d jumped the proceedings.

  Aggie was seated in her comfortable armchair, her carpet-slippered foot supported by the old leather pouffe she always favoured when her leg was tired. Henrietta was seated beside her and Paul was leaning against the window frame, the open windows which looked over the Esplanade affording the only air available, it seemed, in this stiflingly close space. It was the end of the wet season, but the weather remained uncomfortably humid, he thought. But then perhaps it was just Aggie’s place. She didn’t even have a ceiling fan, just a small, useless contraption which sat on the corner of her desk whirring noisily and doing little but blow her papers in all directions. She was forever plonking paperweights and bowls and ashtrays about the place.

  ‘The Races will be held in two months’ time,’ Henrietta continued, ‘and family and guests are to join us in the grandstand. Well, Terence calls it a grandstand, but if that’s what it really is then it’s a very miniature version.’ She laughed.

  Henrietta had certainly changed since their first meeting, Paul thought. He approved of her exuberance, in his opinion she’d never looked lovelier.

  Paul Trewinnard would have quite willingly admitted, had anyone bothered to ask, that he had a bit of a crush on Henrietta Galloway. ‘Good heavens, what man wouldn’t,’ would have been his reply.

  ‘It’s to be a two-day affair, people are invited to camp the night,’ Henrietta chattered on, ‘and Terence is going to set up huge spits to roast sides of beef in the evenings. There’ll be the family gymkhana events on the first day and the big races on the second, and he’s planning it all for the second weekend in June.’

  ‘Thank God for that.’ Paul fanned himself with the papers he held in his hand.

  ‘Stop complaining,’ Aggie barked, ‘it’s a beautiful day.’ The heat never seemed to affect Aggie the way it did others. ‘It all sounds wonderful, Henrietta, and we shall most certainly be there, now let’s get on with some work, there’s so much to be done.’

  The Bullalalla Races was a more spectacular event than Henrietta could possibly have imagined, even though Terence had promised that it would be.

  ‘Up to a thousand people used to come,’ he’d told her, ‘bookies and jockeys and spectators would pour in from miles around. Of course that was before the war,’ he’d corrected himself, ‘with so many evacuated from the area we probably won’t get half that number, but it’ll be something to see, I promise you.’

  Henrietta had prayed that it would be a success, for Terence’s sake, he’d worked so hard and it was so important to him, she couldn’t bear the prospect of his disappointment.

  Now, as she stood in the grandstand, little Malcolm in the perambulator at her side, preparing for the arrival of friends and family, she looked out at the crowd and was overwhelmed. Men were mingling around the perimeters of the track socialising, parents were watching the scores of their children taking stocky little ponies through their paces in preparation for the morning’s gymkhana events and, beyond the track, yet more families were busily setting up camp amongst the trees by the creek.

  ‘There must be hundreds,’ she murmured to Terence who was beside her, shaking hands, slapping people on the back, mostly fellow station owners and managers, proudly introducing them to his beautiful young wife in her pretty floral dress and his year-old son gurgling happily in his pram.

  ‘And this is only the first day,’ he laughed in reply. ‘Just you wait ’til tomorrow when the big boys turn up to put the money on.’

  Terence was in his element. Even he had not expected such numbers. Where had they come from? It was as if the war had never been. Perhaps that was it. People wanted to forget. Those from Darwin were only too happy to leave their troubled lives behind for two magic days, to forget that they were living in hovels trying to piece together a new existence, whilst others were willing to travel from far and wide for a taste of pre-war style celebration. Whatever it was that had brought them, they were there in numbers, and the atmosphere throughout was one of festivity.

  The dusty oval racecourse was carved out of the scrub, the gymkhana courses set up in the centre. The track railings had been painted bright green, as had the several open shelters around the perimeter, which Terence had had built to provide shade for the elderly and women with babies. He’d gone one step further with the grandstand enclosure. The grandstand was bright yellow with green trim—‘the same as the Sydney Cricket Ground,’ he’d boasted, ‘makes it look official.’ Amidst the vast Territory scrubland, the overall effect of the Bullalalla racetrack was bizarre but attractive.

  Hans van der Baan, who had married an Australian girl, a nurse he’d met during the war, and was now living in Perth, had flown up for the occasion and Terence was overjoyed. The two men opened a bottle of beer from one of the several iceboxes and were soon lost in conversation, leaving Henrietta to converse with the station managers and their wives.

  An hour or so later, the children’s gymkhana events under way and the crowd roaring enthusiastically, Henrietta excused herself to feed and change the baby in the family tent, a comparatively luxurious affair in the shade by the creek. It was close to noon now and he needed to be out of the heat, she said. Nellie was waiting for her and the two women chatted, Henrietta thankful for the break. She hoped that Paul and Aggie wouldn’t be too much longer, she could do with some allies, and she would need them more than ever when the f
amily arrived. Terence’s two younger brothers, whom she’d never met, were flying up from Adelaide with their wives and were expected to arrive in the early afternoon.

  She left the baby with Nellie and, upon returning to the grandstand, was thankful to find that Paul and Aggie had arrived. They had driven out in Paul’s newly acquired Austin and were standing to one side waiting for her, Foong Lee and his son Albert with them. She greeted them warmly, ushering them to seats in the front row alongside her.

  She sensed a slight change in Terence as she sat next to him and hoped he wasn’t about to have one of his unpredictable mood swings. He’d been in such good humour of late.

  ‘Is something the matter?’ she whispered.

  ‘I told you to invite your friends,’ he muttered.

  ‘I did.’

  ‘Since when have you been friends with the Chink?’ He said it a little louder, obviously for Hans van der Baan’s benefit, she noted, as the big Dutchman nudged him and nodded vigorously in agreement.

  Henrietta was shocked and felt herself flush. She looked quickly sideways at the others, but Aggie, seated beside her, was in deep conversation with Paul, and Foong Lee three seats further to the right could surely not have heard, he certainly showed no signs of having done so.

  ‘He is my friend,’ she whispered fiercely, turning back to Terence, humiliation lending anger to her voice, her eyes flashing a warning, ‘and I’ll thank you to remember that.’ She was as confused as she was angry. Terence had never displayed any malignantly racist tendencies, and amongst the crowd there were many Chinese and Aborigines. It was Hans van der Baan’s influence, she realised with an instant surge of dislike, and she gave the Dutchman a withering glance.

  For once, Terence backed down. ‘All right,’ he said, placating her, ‘all right, fair enough.’ But he scowled as he took a swig of his beer, looking neither at her nor at Hans.