‘Blast it,’ he said. ‘We’re gonna have to swim.’
The dinghy listed to one side as they half-swam, half-waded across the lagoon towards the island. By the time they struggled ashore and collapsed in the soft white sand under a palm tree, barely a quarter of the boat was showing above the waterline. Panting like Pomeranians, the Fighting Stingrays watched as the little boat that had brought them from TI tilted up, nose pointing skyward, before disappearing beneath the glassy water.
Charlie groaned. ‘Well, fellas,’ he said. ‘We’re stranded.’
‘What do you mean, stranded?’ said Masa, propping himself up on his elbows as Judy scurried about in the sand beside him.
‘You’re about as thick as two short planks, aren’t you?’ snapped Alf. ‘Even if we did know where the hell we are, we’d have a bit of trouble getting off this island without a boat, don’t you reckon?’
Charlie looked over the lagoon to the empty ocean beyond. They had no fresh water and barely any food. They wouldn’t last more than a few days unless a ship came by to rescue them, but any ship was likely to belong to either the Australian or the Japanese navies, neither of which they wanted to meet.
The three of them lapsed into a gloomy silence.
Then, on the breeze, Charlie thought he heard a soft gurgling. ‘Do you hear that?’ he said.
The others listened. Coming from the jungle-like growth behind them was the unmistakable sound of bubbling water. Charlie leapt up. Without waiting for the others, he sprinted towards the noise. He’d been in the dinghy so long that the ground under his feet seemed to be moving, and he stumbled several times as he crashed through the mass of vines and bamboo.
About twenty yards inland was a small clearing, and in the centre a tiny spring surrounded by rocks. Throwing himself on his stomach, Charlie took a cautious sip – it was clean and cool, with a slight mineral tang, but no hint of salt. As the others arrived in the clearing, Charlie stuck his whole face into the spring, gulping down huge mouthfuls of water. And for a few minutes that’s all any of them did, lapping away like greedy cats as birds chirped overhead and the afternoon sun beat on the backs of their necks.
‘Gee,’ said Alf, water running down his face and onto his shirt. ‘That’s good.’
‘Even better than ginger beer,’ said Masa, making a cup out of his hands for Judy to drink from. ‘Is it rainwater?’
‘I reckon it must come from underground,’ Charlie said. ‘That’s why it tastes a bit funny.’
Once they had each drunk at least a gallon, Masa peeled off his shirt and started unbuttoning his shorts.
‘Oi,’ said Alf, stooping to fill their water bottle. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’
‘Thought I might have a quick bath,’ said Masa.
‘Oh no you don’t,’ said Alf. ‘This is water for drinking. There’s no way you’re putting one smelly toe into it, let alone anything else.’
Masa put his shirt back on. ‘Yes, your Majesty,’ he grumbled. ‘Shall we see what else is around here then?’
The island was only about twice the size of the sports field on TI, and it took them less than five minutes to walk the whole way around. The beach they’d come ashore on was soft and sandy, with enormous palm trees and sandpaper figs that stretched towards the glassy lagoon. The other side was more rugged, with almost no sand, smooth brown rocks encrusted with oyster shells, and ledges that dropped off into deeper water below. And the interior of the little island was a real jungle, with dense green foliage and orchids in every shade of purple.
They were making their way back to the beach when Masa stopped at a particularly overgrown bit of jungle. ‘Fellas,’ he said. ‘I think there’s a house here.’
‘Pull the other one,’ grunted Alf.
‘He’s right,’ Charlie said. ‘There’s something here.’
The three of them yanked the vines away to reveal the hidden structure. Calling it a house was a bit of a stretch – it was a small, open-fronted shelter with a sandy dirt floor, corrugated metal roof and three walls of bamboo canes. It was so low that Alf had to duck to avoid hitting his head and, judging by all the spiders and dead leaves inside, it hadn’t been occupied in an awfully long time.
‘Who built it?’ said Alf. ‘Natives?’
Charlie shook his head – he knew Islanders usually made their homes out of bamboo and palm leaves, but he also knew their structures were a lot sturdier than this ramshackle hut. But then he remembered a story Ern Riley had heard from somebody in the pub, who got it from a sea captain who swore it was true.
‘I know where we are!’ he said. ‘This is Gecko Island.’
‘Never heard of it,’ said Alf.
‘You must know about Old Nick, the hermit of Gecko Island?’
‘I thought that was just a story?’
Masa was looking from one of them to the other. ‘What the heck are you talking about?’ he said.
Charlie cleared this throat. ‘Old Nick used to be the captain of a ship. Or a Russian prince, depending on who you ask. And maybe fifty years ago, his ship was on its way to TI from the East Indies when it was blown off course and sunk in a storm. Old Nick was the only one who survived, and he was washed up on the shores of a place called Gecko Island.’
‘What happened to him?’ said Masa.
‘No one found him for years,’ said Charlie. ‘And by the time a pearling lugger stopped by looking for water, Old Nick had decided he didn’t want to be rescued. He told the pearlers to bugger off, and lived in a shack on the island for the rest of his life. He barely spoke to another person for thirty years!’
Masa frowned at the sagging little shelter. ‘You mean . . .’
Charlie nodded. ‘I reckon this is Old Nick’s shack. We must be on Gecko Island.’
‘So how far are we from TI?’ asked Masa.
Charlie shrugged. ‘Don’t know. But Ern said Old Nick wasn’t found for so long because the island was miles from any of the main shipping routes.’
‘Hmmm,’ said Alf.
Charlie turned towards the beach, which was about ten yards away through the gently swaying foliage. A crash and a thump made him jump, but it was only a coconut falling from one of the countless palm trees that leaned across the powdery white sand. The lagoon was as clear as freshly cut ice, and he watched a plump silver fish leap out of it, gleaming in the sun before re-entering the water with a graceful plop.
‘And if Old Nick could live here . . .’ began Charlie.
‘Then there’s no reason we can’t,’ finished Alf.
‘But the mainland?’ said Masa.
‘Forget the mainland,’ said Charlie. ‘We can stay here forever if we want. Just think, no soldiers trying to lock you up, no horrible rellies bossing us around, not even any school.’
Alf chuckled. ‘I like the sound of that last bit,’ he said.
‘What about food?’ said Masa.
‘We’ve got everything we need,’ exclaimed Charlie. ‘Water, fish, oysters, figs, coconuts, and probably some other stuff too. We’ll eat like kings!’
A smile spread across Masa’s face. ‘Judy loves figs,’ he said. ‘And I’ve always wanted my own island.’
‘That’s settled then,’ said Alf. ‘I hereby claim Gecko Island for the Fighting Stingrays.’ He stood up straight and held the water bottle out in front of him. ‘To freedom!’ he said, taking a big swig before passing it onto to Masa.
‘Freedom from prison camps,’ said Masa. ‘And Uncle Jiro’s and Auntie Reiko’s nagging.’ He sipped from the bottle and handed it to Charlie.
‘Freedom from Captain Maggots,’ said Charlie. He paused for a moment, then blurted out: ‘And . . . from my mum and dad.’
Masa and Alf cheered as Charlie took a massive gulp of sweet spring water. It was the best thing he had ever tasted.
The next couple of weeks were the best of Charlie’s life. They fixed up Old Nick’s shelter first, clearing out the leaf litter, chasing the red-back spiders away and making
the walls as straight as they could. It wasn’t anything like Charlie’s big house back on TI, but it was clean and dry, with just enough space for the three of them to sleep side by side under the tin roof.
The monsoon eased off for a while – there were no more mammoth storms, only a short and fierce downpour every afternoon. The rest of each day was hot and sunny, but the sea breezes sweeping through this open part of the Strait meant the weather was much less stifling than on Thursday Island.
They went swimming in the lagoon at least five times a day. It was like liquid glass, so clear and still that sometimes it was hard to tell where the air stopped and the water began. Charlie spotted all sorts of remarkable animals in the balmy lagoon – dozens of different colourful fish, small octopuses, rays, starfish and tiny seahorses. Once he even saw a Spanish dancer, a flat, ribbon-like red-and-white creature that swirled gracefully through the water and tickled against his ankle.
The three of them really did eat like kings. Charlie sharpened the end of a bamboo stick with the penknife so he could go spearfishing, although it was hardly a challenge to catch anything – even the fish seemed hypnotised by the charms of Gecko Island, barely noticing when Charlie sidled up beside them with his spear.
Alf tried using the slingshot to hunt seagulls, but never got within cooee of hitting one of the birds with a rock. He seemed to prefer gathering to hunting anyway, and could happily spend hours collecting oysters or crabs and harvesting the island’s native fruits and vegetables. There were figs, of course, and plenty of yams, as well as a sizeable cuckoo nut tree. The cuckoo nuts tasted a bit like raw peanuts and had thin black skins that worked their way between teeth and gums, making the Fighting Stingrays look like they’d contracted some sort of horrible disease.
They snoozed under palm trees during the hottest part of the afternoon, making sure they stayed well away from the clusters of ripe coconuts. The coconuts came loose when they least expected it, rocketing towards earth like a cannonball. A person’s skull was bound to come off second-best in a clash with one of the rock-hard fruits. When a coconut did fall to the beach, they would hack it open with the machete and pass it around, taking big sips of any sweet liquid inside before tearing out the pulp with their fingers. Judy took a liking to empty coconut shells, and they often found her curled up inside one like a hermit crab.
The many hours Masa had spent in Auntie Reiko’s kitchen had paid off, because he was an excellent cook. They dug a fire pit on the beach so he could barbecue Charlie’s catches, seasoned with salt from a dry rock pool and served with steaming roast yams. One night, when the wood was too damp to get a fire going, Masa even served the fish Japanese style – completely raw and cut into thin slices. Alf grumbled that he ‘wasn’t going to eat any blinkin’ cat scraps’, but Charlie was surprised to find it was not only edible, but pretty tasty.
Not all of Masa’s dishes were appetising though – one night he pulled a couple of slug-like sea cucumbers from the lagoon and made them into soup in an empty baked-bean can. He swore it was delicious, but the smell alone was enough to make Charlie want to heave.
As the moon waned and the nights grew darker, the lagoon lit up with tiny flashes of phosphorescence. These minuscule creatures were like underwater fireflies, glowing bright green whenever they were disturbed. Charlie, Alf and Masa would wade into the shallows after dinner, churning the water with their hands and trying to write their names with specks of light.
Life on Gecko Island was so perfect that it was easy to forget there was a war on. But they still had their crystal radio set and, sometimes, when the weather was just right, they could pick up a faint signal and listen to the evening news over a buzz of static.
That’s how they learned that Japanese troops were marching their way south at an incredible rate. They had taken over the bomber base at Ambon, were dropping bombs on Port Moresby, and had driven the Australians and British out of Malaya, leaving them holed up on the island of Singapore.
‘Singapore’s the only big British base before Australia, isn’t it?’ said Charlie, as they huddled round the empty bean can they used as a speaker – by placing the crystal radio set’s earpiece inside it, the sound was amplified enough for them to all hear the news. ‘If Japan takes it over, what’s to stop them from popping over to attack us?’
‘Not much,’ admitted Alf. ‘But my brother reckons Singapore is as safe as houses. There’s no way the Pommies will let the Japanese take it.’
But only a few days later, their crackling radio brought terrible news – the British had surrendered Singapore and the fate of the people there was unknown. The Fighting Stingrays stared silently into the smouldering remains of their campfire. Suddenly, it wasn’t a question of if, but when the Japanese would strike Australia.
It took them several days to dig the pit in the jungle behind the shack, breaking up the soil with bamboo poles and scraping out the loose dirt with coconut shells. By the time they’d finished, the earth walls were more or less vertical, and the hole was large enough for all three of them to crouch inside.
‘I still don’t know why we’re wasting our time on this,’ muttered Alf, inspecting the blisters on his palms as they sat in the shade beside their new bomb shelter.
‘Because, drongo,’ said Charlie. ‘If the Japanese show up here or start bombing us, we’re going to need somewhere to hide.’ He handed another palm frond to Masa, who threaded it through the rickety grid of bamboo sticks they were going to use to conceal the pit. ‘And, as we saw the other week with that seaweed, a bit of camouflage can go a long way.’
Alf scoffed. ‘And you reckon a few palm leaves are going to stop the Japanese? Anyway, you heard the Prime Minister on the wireless – we’re all serving Australia now. And I’m no coward, so bugger hiding.’ He picked up the machete and admired the rough blade. ‘I’ll be ready if they come to Gecko Island.’
Not long ago, Charlie would have been just like Alf, talking tough. But now he was worried sick. It was starting to look like there was nothing anyone could do to stop the Japanese from invading Australia. He and Alf and Masa might be all right, squirrelled away here in the middle of nowhere, but what about Audrey, and Rosie and his mum and dad? Would they be interned, like the Australians had done to Masa’s people? Or would the Japanese simply kill the lot of them? He wondered what the enemy was doing to the Australians they’d captured in Singapore, and all of a sudden the war didn’t seem so exciting.
The pit cover worked out surprisingly well – any invaders who turned up on the island would think it was just another patch of palm leaves, as long as they didn’t look too closely. With the hard work done, the Fighting Stingrays sat around their small campfire, picking the last bits of flesh off a grilled parrot fish as Alf played with the tuning coil of the crystal set. But the reception was shocking tonight, and they could only make out the occasional snatch of words in between bursts of noisy static: ‘sustained raids . . . reports of 100 bombers . . . Prime Minister to address the Parliament . . .’
Then the static vanished and the radio announcer’s posh tones came through their makeshift speaker loud and clear: ‘The attack on Darwin is the first time an enemy has mounted an assault on the Australian mainland. The first wave of Japanese bombers struck the city and harbour at ten o’clock this morning, and were accompanied by a screen of Zero-type fighters.’
Charlie’s jaw dropped, and so did his stomach. It was really happening – the enemy was attacking Australia.
The announcer went on. ‘A second raid followed in the early afternoon, and was mainly directed at Royal Australian Air Force installations. Damage from the attacks is considerable and loss of life has been reported. In an announcement a short time ago, Prime Minister Curtin said . . .’ The radio gave a high-pitched squeal, and the announcer’s voice was lost behind a haze of electronic buzzing.
‘No!’ said Alf. He scrambled forwards and fiddled frantically with the radio’s coil. ‘Come back!’
But the wireless just re
sponded with harsh static. Alf swung around to Charlie and Masa. ‘He said loss of life, didn’t he?’
Charlie and Masa nodded.
Alf howled, burying his face in his hands. ‘My brother,’ he said, slumping to the ground. ‘He works at the air-force base in Darwin.’
Charlie swallowed hard. ‘But that doesn’t mean –’
‘We have to go back,’ said Alf, picking up their backpack.
‘Come off it, Alf, you know we don’t have a boat,’ said Charlie.
‘Then I’ll swim,’ said Alf. ‘I want to find out if he’s all right.’
‘You can’t swim to the mainland!’ said Charlie. ‘It might be a hundred miles or more.’
Alf dropped to his knees and gave a bellow that made Charlie and Masa jump.
Masa spoke up. ‘Sorry about your brother, Alf,’ he said. ‘But he’s fine, I’m sure of it.’
Alf glared at him. ‘You’re sorry?’ he said. There was an expression in Alf’s eyes Charlie had never seen before.
‘Course I am,’ said Masa.
Alf leapt up. ‘Are you sure?’ he said. ‘Because if your lot killed my brother . . .’ he trailed off.
Judy jumped off Masa’s lap as he stood up to face Alf. ‘They aren’t my lot!’ he said.
‘You sure about that, mate?’ said Alf.
‘Course.’
‘You’re a dinkum Aussie, just like me, are you?’
‘Take it easy, you two,’ said Charlie. He didn’t like where this was going.
Masa tilted his head up to look Alf in the eye. ‘No, Alf,’ he said. ‘If I was just like you, I wouldn’t have to live in Yokohama, away from everyone else, or have people whispering behind my back as I walk down the street. And my dad wouldn’t have died doing a stupid, dangerous job, cos he’d probably be running the company instead.’
A piece of wood cracked in the campfire as Alf towered over Masa like a pit bull over a fox terrier. ‘You and your old man are lucky you’re even allowed to live in our country,’ he spat.
The Fighting Stingrays Page 10