Farren headed for the shed, keen to help load the rescue gear, but when he saw that Danny hadn’t moved he stopped.
‘Yer gunna give us a hand, Dan?’ Farren spoke as quietly as the wind allowed. ‘Come down with us to see what we can do?’
Danny watched men lifting crates of ropes, pulleys, lifebelts and buoys onto the truck.
‘Not much use the way I am, mate.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Maybe I’ll just have a little poke around on me own, eh? An’ p’raps catch up with yers later on, orright?’ He got hold of Farren’s arm just above the elbow. ‘Don’t do anythin’ too brave, all right? Ya hear me?’
Farren understood. ‘Yeah, no, I won’t. See yer, Danny. You be careful, too, orright?’
Danny let Farren’s arm go. ‘As always, mate. See yer later, eh?’ He turned to limp off down towards the beach, stopping once to light a smoke, his face close to the flame. Farren felt such an overwhelming love for his brother that he could hardly breathe.
‘Where’s Danny-boy off to?’ Jack Haggar approached Farren from the dark, clutching a handful of storm lanterns as if he had six dead ducks by the neck.
‘He’s gunna search the beach.’ Farren indicated the track that roamed downhill into blackness. ‘His arm ain’t up to much.’
‘It’s good to see him.’ Jack looked into the dark as if Danny was still in sight. ‘He’s a champ.’
‘Yeah, he is,’ Farren said.
‘Hop on, boys!’ Will Conellan waved from the cab of the truck and gunned the Dodge’s motor. ‘And hang on!’
THIRTY-THREE
From a storm-powered sky the wind pelted rain at the men on the clifftop. Farren watched in awe as the beam of the lighthouse lanced across the breaking sea, and listened as one of the lighthouse keepers, a man in a black coat with buttons the size of two-bob bits, shouted information to Jack.
‘We sighted her comin’ up from the south-east.’ The man’s wispy hair looked as if it was going to blow off his head. ‘On ’er run in she got caught broadside and knocked down. Then taken in over the reef.’ The man’s voice trailed away. ‘Not a chance, yer wouldn’t think. But yers never know. Yer never know.’
Following Jack’s instructions, Farren and a few others took the track down to the bay beach, the water there relatively protected on the inner side of the Heads. Even so, he could see that fast-running waves ruled it, the Queenscliff lifeboat taking each like a horse over a fence.
‘A dirty night,’ Jack said to Farren, as they stood at the start of the pier, watching the boat’s precarious search. ‘Someone’d have to be mighty lucky.’
Farren watched the racing black sea with fascination and fear. Although it had been robbed of strength by rocks and reefs, it still managed to send swell after swell that passed hissing and heaving under the pier. Nobody could survive this, he thought, feeling the timbers tremble. Only Charlie Piper, tied to a rope, had been out to the end of the pier in a vain search for wreckage, survivors, or bodies. And he’d come back looking as if he’d been blasted with a fire hose.
‘Bloody deadly,’ he’d pronounced it as he dragged loose the bowline around his waist. ‘Start prayin’, boys. It’s a bloody nightmare. There’s waves out there like mountains.’
‘Wreckage!’ A fisherman pointed, arm straight out like a trimmed tree branch. ‘There! Windward of the pier. Halfway along. Just come out of the dark.’
Farren, with four or five others, made their way out to where the stern section of a large boat wallowed like a decapitated whale. Another fisherman, Andros Gasowski, huge in soaking oilskins, thrust himself at the rail.
‘Hullo za boat!’ His voice was like a foghorn. ‘Zenny body zar? C’n you ’ear me? Hullo za boat!’
The wreckage wallowed on, as if it was concentrating solely on the process of disintegration. In the passing flash of the lighthouse beam Farren saw her name, the Huon Messenger, and her home port, Furneaux Island, written across the stern.
‘She’s groundin’ again,’ someone said. ‘Look at that.’
The stern section slewed as if it had been tripped and held by some giant hand, to stay stuck, absorbing the waves like a beaten boxer taking body blows.
‘Hello za boat!’ Andros yelled. ‘Anybody zar! Can you ’ear me? Hello!’
Farren, like the others, waited, and although the sound of the storm came at him with the added sting of rain, he felt as if he was waiting in silence. He thought of his father, but the thoughts were too terrible, and he let them go.
A massive, black-shouldered wave rolled in, sweeping across the wreckage, the stern section of the Huon Messenger looking as if this time she would sink for good, but again she sluggishly rose, to float low in the water, her deck awash with foam and tangled rigging. If there was anyone on board, Farren knew they could not be alive. And if they had got off, where they were might never be known.
‘Bloody fearsome night, eh, Farren?’ Grainger Clouty said, water running down the creases of his face. He smiled through the pelting rain. ‘Yer sure yer don’t wanna sell that boat of yours to the old man now?’
Farren knew Grainger was joking. He didn’t mind Joe’s four boys. They were fishermen, not businessmen, who worked their father’s boats, and lived on Fishermen’s Flat with all the other fishing families.
‘Nah! We’re keepin’ ’er!’ Farren shouted back, but he wasn’t game enough, in a gale like this, to add that he’d be fishing her as soon as he could.
‘This don’t put yer off?’ Grainger shrugged as if the storm was just a minor inconvenience to a good night out. ‘So how’s Danny? He’s sure still one bloody hard charger. Saw him down there tonight. Good on him.’
Farren was pleased to hear what Grainger had said.
‘Yeah, he’s still tryin’ his best.’ Farren had to lean and shout to be heard. ‘He was havin’ a look further down the beach, because his arm’s not up to much. So who knows? He might find somethin’.’ In the sluggish grip of the kelp Farren could see bits and pieces of wreckage floating like wooden tombstones in a flooded cemetery. ‘He’ll go home when he’s had enough.’
‘Which may be pretty soon.’ Grainger spat off into the darkness. ‘I reckon we’ll only be comin’ back in the mornin’ to see what’s been washed up. It’s just about all over here, I’d say.’
THIRTY-FOUR
Farren spent another freezing hour on the beach before being called up into the lighthouse shed where a huge black kettle steamed. He was given a mug of tea, a roast-beef sandwich, and a seat on a bench next to Jack Haggar. In the low light, his face shaped by fifty years at sea, Jack looked as ancient as the cliffs and as indestructible.
‘You go off home with the boys now,’ he told Farren. ‘We’ll keep the gear ’ere, and a skeleton crew just in case somethin’ turns up, but the truck’s headin’ back.’ Jack lowered his voice. ‘Thanks for yer ’elp. And Danny, too, but there’s enough fellers here to deal with things you probably don’t wanna see.’
Farren didn’t want to help with the retrieval of bodies, but he would’ve if he’d been asked.
‘I’ll go catch up with Danny, then,’ he said. ‘I got work tomorrer, too, so yeah, all right.’
‘Good boy.’ Jack stood, his legs like stanchions, his boots like anchors. ‘Yer dad’d be proud of yer, Farren. And yer mum. See yer later, mate.’
Farren finished his tea and sandwich, and when the rest of the men left the shed for the truck, he went with them.
Wet and exhausted, Farren trudged along the sodden island track, the wind at his back helping him along as if it were trying to make up for some of the damage it had done earlier. The sight of a lamp burning in the parlour window raised his hopes that Danny was home.
‘Be there, Danny,’ he muttered. ‘Be home, mate.’
Farren kicked his boots off at the door and hung his coat under the sheet of tin nailed there for the purpose. Stepping inside he saw Danny sitting where he’d been sitting earlier, but wearing different clothes. Farren laughed, with relief, and w
ith pleasure at the stifling heat.
‘Oh, geez, it’s beautiful in –’
Danny put a finger to his lips.
‘Shhh. Quiet, matey-boy.’ He pointed with what Farren saw was a bottle of rum. ‘We gotta visitor in the big bed and I think she only went off to sleep a few minutes ago. A little kid.’ Danny held out the bottle to Farren who absently took it. ‘So siddown and have a drink. I saved yer a snort. Bloody awful night, eh?’
‘A kid?’ Farren, holding the rum, moved towards the stove but looked towards the half-open bedroom door. ‘What kid, Danny? From the wreck? How? You’re jokin’?’
‘No, I’m not jokin’.’ Danny took back the rum from Farren before he’d had a chance to drink it. ‘And yes, she is a kid from the wreck. So now, cobber, could you please make us a cuppa tea, because after I got a few mugfuls into the kid, I lost the bloody teapot. So I had to make do with this.’ He lifted the bottle. ‘Cheers.’ And he downed the lot.
Farren could see the teapot on the sideboard, but he didn’t have the energy to get it.
‘But this kid, Danny.’ He had to know what had happened. ‘I mean, like where’d you find her? I mean, because you were lookin’ in the bloody wrong place.’
‘Was I?’ Danny shook the last few drops from the bottle onto his tongue, his face rearranging scars to accommodate a magician’s grin. ‘Was I just?’
THIRTY-FIVE
In the morning, Farren came out of his room rubbing his neck, vaguely remembering getting himself off to bed at some dark, unknown hour. Piles of wet clothes lay on the floor like coils of intestines and Danny was asleep in his chair. The place smelled, Farren thought, as if the tide had come and gone, leaving seaweed and sand.
On tip-toes he went to the door of his parents’ room and saw that the kid, whoever she was, was definitely still in there and asleep. Not knowing what else to do, he quietly went and sat by the window. The sky was sunlit and windblown, torn clouds looking to have been pretty much wrung dry. Already he knew he was late for work, but couldn’t be bothered even thinking about it, let alone going there.
Instead he thought about last night’s storm, knowing that the boat would be in a hundred bits spread up and down the coast. It was a miracle that this kid had made it safely away. And it was even more of a miracle that Danny could’ve found her in the wrong place when twenty-five blokes couldn’t find anybody in the right place. But that was Danny all over, Farren thought; the wild card in the pack.
‘Oi, mate.’
Farren looked to see that Danny was waking, his eyes more blood-filled than blood-shot, his face creased as if he had slept in pain and was waking to more, his scars angry-looking and red.
‘’Ullo, sailor.’ Danny levered himself up in the chair, dazed-looking. ‘Is this the Windsor ’otel? I was sure it was last night, but it doesn’t smell like it is now.’
Farren came up with a laugh. The smell of wet clothes was dreary and cold and it was only the light from the window, clear and bright, that livened things up at all.
‘I’ll get the stove go –’ Farren didn’t finish.
In the doorway of his parents’ room stood a girl about eight or nine years old wrapped in a blanket that she gripped with small, hard-looking brown hands. Her hair stood out like a matted, sun-bleached halo, and her eyes, blue-grey and slanted, were made more intense by the sharp ledges of sun-darkened cheeks. She looked, Farren thought, as if she’d lived outside.
‘Ah, g’day.’ Farren was amazed at the sight of her. How could she be here? Where did she come from? Who was she? And apart from that, he estimated that she was quite easily the wildest-looking kid he’d ever seen, and he’d seen plenty running around on Fisherman’s Flat. ‘How are yer? I’ll getcha a cuppa tea when I get the stove goin’.’
Danny had to turn his whole body to look behind him. He rubbed his face hard with his good hand, as if to restore the circulation, the sound of it like sandpaper on soft wood.
‘’G’day, little mate.’ He tried to smile, opening his eyes wide, as if forcing them to properly begin their job of seeing. ‘How yer feelin’? D’yer sleep all right? Nice ’n’ warm in there? Boy, it’s not often we get a visitor like you.’
The girl nodded as if she’d heard what he’d said but had other things on her mind. She shot a short, sharp glance at Farren then took a step closer to Danny.
‘Would you blokes ’ave anythin’ to eat?’ She spoke with a defiant tilt to her chin. ‘I know I should’n ask but I’m bloody starvin’.’
Danny grinned. ‘Whatta we got, cookie?’ He ran two pinching fingers around his collar as if this was the key to being neat and tidy, clean and healthy. ‘You’re the local expert.’
Farren felt like he was in a school play.
‘Eggs ’n’ bread,’ he said. ‘But first I’d better get some wood for the stove and get that goin’.’
Farren saw the girl’s eyes narrow into silver-blue slits like the back of a skinning knife.
‘D’youse know where Bert ’n’ Garvon ’n’ Ellis is?’ She stayed close to the bedroom doorway, as if she felt safer there. She took a breath. ‘Are ’ny of them orright? I didn’t see none of ’em swimmin’ where I was. I was the only one with me life jacket on.’
Farren had never been asked a question like this. He guessed he and Danny should tell her what they figured the truth was, but probably not all at once.
‘Well, we didn’t find nobody else last night,’ Danny said. ‘But maybe someone got ashore later. Blokes would’ve stayed down there all night to search again first-thing this mornin’.’
Farren waited for her to speak, but all she did was tighten the blanket around herself.
‘Keep yer fingers crossed,’ Danny added, and hobbled to the stove, his shirt creased like crumpled paper. ‘We’re hopin’ for good news.’ He delved into the old kero tin and brought out a fistful of gumsticks. ‘So what’s yer name? I know yer told me last night but the bloody wind was that strong it blew it straight in one ear and out the other.’
‘Souki.’ The girl watched Danny awkwardly holding the sticks. ‘I come from Furneaux Island.’ She spoke as if she was thinking about something else. With small steps she edged out into the parlour. ‘I’ll do that fire. I’m good at fires.’
‘No worries,’ Danny managed a laugh before he started to cough. ‘I’m shithouse.’
Souki dumped the blanket on a chair, Farren seeing she wore two of his old school jumpers, some shorts, and football socks. She advanced to the stove, took the kindling from Danny, knelt without a sideways glance, and began breaking sticks, the sound like gunshots.
Danny picked up the kettle and headed for the sink.
‘You onto that wood, Farren?’ He filled the kettle, the sound like a tinny drum. ‘We’re gunna have to eat up big this mornin’.’ He watched Souki poking sticks into the firebox. ‘Hey, Souki, I’m Danny.’ He watched her work. ‘And this’s Farren, me brother. And don’t worry, mate, because whatever happens we’ll look after yer, orright? As me an’ Farren are the best blokes on this whole entire bloody island.’
Souki spotted the matches on the sideboard and got them. She crouched at the firebox, and struck a light, shielding the flame like a bushman.
‘Thanks for savin’ me, Danny.’ She lit the newspaper. ‘My mum’ll think you’re the best bloke in the world.’ Doggedly she threw in small sticks, not looking sideways, watching the fire bloom like a fierce flower. ‘You got me outta that bloody black kelp and no one else did’ve.’ She talked only to the fire. ‘I was bloody stuck, bloody oath I was. I reckon I was done for.’
Danny sent a quick wink to Farren.
‘Ah, I only gave yer a bit of a hand, mate. I’m sure you’d do the same for me.’ He gestured to Farren. ‘Be a sport and look after the kettle, will yer? I gotta go outside for a smoke, a spit, and the very unpleasant rest of it.’
Farren took the kettle and saw Souki squash an escaping spider with the bottom of her fist. It made him laugh, quietly, to himself. H
e figured she was a real good kid.
THIRTY-SIX
Maggie sat on the kitchen step, taking a breather outside, watching Farren come along the path with an extra tray of bread from the bakery.
‘You Foxes,’ she said drily, taking her cigarettes from her apron pocket, ‘have got the whole town talkin’. What’s yer secret down there? Hero pills?’
Farren stopped, the smell of bread rising like a heavenly cloud. Earlier he’d bought Souki to the pub to have a bath and then Maggie had taken her to give a statement to Constable Decker.
‘I dunno.’ Farren was pleased but embarrassed. ‘But that Souki’s a wild one, ain’t she?’ The knowledge that it was Danny who’d rescued her made him too proud for words. And when he thought of Isla, still recovering like a lovely pale ghost, he felt himself lifted and strengthened. ‘She’s one outta the box.’
Maggie tossed a match into soggy geranium leaves.
‘Yeah, she certainly is. But she’s still only a little kid. And the next few days are gunna be murder on her.’ Maggie looked at Farren for one drawn-out moment. ‘And no one’d know that better than you, would they, old Farren? Anyway, so all of us’ll have to look out for her. Not too many boats go to Furneaux Island that I know of. She might be here for a while.’
Farren knew where Furneaux Island was. He’d seen it on a chart; midway between Queenscliff and Tasmania, amongst a few other islands not often visited by shipping from this side of the Strait.
‘She told us the blokes on the boat wrapped her up in all the lifejackets,’ he said, thinking about what that really meant. ‘And held onto her right through the Rip.’
Maggie put out her hand for Farren to help her up, which he did, managing to support the bread tray on one arm.
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