The Forgotten Pearl

by Belinda Murrell

  About the Book

  WHEN CHLOE VISITS HER GRANDMOTHER, SHE LEARNS HOW CLOSE THE SECOND WORLD WAR CAME TO DESTROYING HER FAMILY. COULD THE EXPERIENCES OF ANOTHER TIME HELP CHLOE TO FACE HER OWN PROBLEMS?

  In 1941, Poppy lives in Darwin, a peaceful paradise far from the war. But when Japan attacks Pearl Harbor and then Australia, everything Poppy holds dear is threatened – her family, her neighbours, her friends and her beloved pets. Her brother Edward is captured by the enemy. Her home town becomes a war zone, as the Japanese raid over and over again.

  Terrified for their lives, Poppy and her mother flee to Sydney, only to find that the danger follows them there. Poppy must face her war with courage and determination. Will her world ever be the same again?

  A forgotten pearl is the key to entering an exhilarating wartime adventure from Belinda Murrell, author of The Ivory Rose, The Ruby Talisman and The Locket of Dreams.

  Contents

  Epigraph

  Glossary of Japanese words and phrases

  Prologue – 8 April 2012

  Chapter 1 The House at Myilly Point

  Chapter 2 A Surprise Visitor

  Chapter 3 The Dragon Pearl

  Chapter 4 The Drover’s Boy

  Chapter 5 Alexandra Downs

  Chapter 6 Pearl Harbor

  Chapter 7 Iris

  Chapter 8 In the Mood

  Chapter 9 The Warning

  Chapter 10 Farewell

  Chapter 11 Letters

  Chapter 12 Singapore

  Chapter 13 The Hospital

  Chapter 14 The Aftermath

  Chapter 15 Escape

  Chapter 16 Journey’s End

  Chapter 17 Telegram

  Chapter 18 Austerity

  Chapter 19 The Apparition

  Chapter 20 Sydney Harbour

  Chapter 21 Epistles

  Chapter 22 Homecoming

  Chapter 23 Christmas Feast

  Epilogue – 8 April 2012

  Author’s Note

  Fun Facts about Australia and the Second World War

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Also by Belinda Murrell

  Copyright Notice

  More at Random House Australia

  Loved the book

  For all the men, women and children who sacrificed so much during the Second World War, and for my husband, Rob, who shared my adventures in the Top End and introduced me to its history.

  We Shall Keep the Faith

  by Moina Michael, November 1918

  Oh! you who sleep in Flanders Fields,

  Sleep sweet – to rise anew!

  We caught the torch you threw

  And holding high, we keep the Faith

  With All who died.

  We cherish, too, the poppy red

  That grows on fields where valour led;

  It seems to signal to the skies

  That blood of heroes never dies,

  But lends a lustre to the red

  Of the flower that blooms above the dead

  In Flanders Fields.

  And now the Torch and Poppy Red

  We wear in honour of our dead.

  Fear not that ye have died for naught;

  We’ll teach the lesson that ye wrought

  In Flanders Fields.

  Glossary of Japanese words and phrases

  Arigato Thank you

  Chan Affectionate term for a child, used after their name, as in Shinju-chan

  Dou itashi mashite It was my pleasure

  Ogenki desuka? How are you?

  Ohayou gozaimasu Good day

  San Term of respect, like Mr or Mrs, used after family name, as in Murata-San

  Sayonara Goodbye

  Shinju Pearl

  Watashi wa genki desu Very well

  Prologue – 8 April 2012

  It’s hard to believe how completely your life can change in just a few minutes, thought Chloe. Take friendship: one minute you have a group of friends to hang out with, gossip and laugh with. The next minute, something happens that changes everything.

  ‘Are you all right, Chloe?’ asked her grandmother, gently stroking her forehead. ‘You seem distracted.’

  Normally, Chloe loved visiting her grandparents’ apartment. It always seemed gracious and elegant – the polished, antique furniture; the vases of flowers; the paintings on the walls and the piles of books – but today she felt sad and dejected. It was the holidays, the weather was stunning, and yet everything was wrong.

  Chloe mentally shook herself. ‘I’m just thinking about my history assignment,’ she fibbed. ‘It’s on the Second World War.’

  ‘The war?’ asked Nanna, frowning.

  Chloe pushed her dark hair back and nodded. ‘I have to interview a relative or friend about their experiences during the war in Australia and how it affected their lives,’ she explained. ‘We’re supposed to create a video or a website about their experiences, including letters, photographs and relics – anything that brings the story to life.’

  A shadow flitted over Nanna’s face. She rubbed her left arm from shoulder to elbow as though it ached. ‘That sounds terrifying,’ she confessed. ‘You kids are so clever with what you can do with technology these days.’

  ‘Mum thought I should interview you,’ continued Chloe, ‘but I guess the war didn’t really affect Australia. It was all fought in Europe, with Hitler and the Blitz and the concentration camps. I mean, I know you went to school here in Sydney during the war, but it’s not like your dad was a soldier or anything.’

  Nanna shut her eyes and pressed her fingers into the bridge of her nose. She was silent for a few moments.

  ‘The war years . . .’ mused her grandmother. ‘Such a long time ago . . . So many things that we’ve tried to forget . . .’

  Chloe looked at her grandmother with concern. ‘Are you all right, Nanna? You don’t have to help me – I could always ask Brianna’s grandfather. His father fought in Tobruk.’

  Nanna smiled – a smile that was loving and warm and somehow wise. ‘No, my darling, I’d like to help you with your assignment. Perhaps it is time to talk about it all.’

  Nanna stood up from her armchair, dropping her knitting needles on the sideboard. She was teaching Chloe how to knit a soft, pale-blue, mohair scarf. ‘But before I tell you about the war, I think we need a cup of tea and a slice of my famous Belgian lemon cake.’

  Nanna bustled into the tiny galley kitchen to put the kettle on. ‘While the kettle’s boiling, come and help me look for an old box of letters and photos I have hidden away in my bedroom somewhere. I haven’t looked at them for years.’

  Chloe followed her grandmother into her bedroom, with its handmade quilt on the bed, a cedar dressing table and a tall bookcase crowded with books and framed family photos. There were photos of Chloe’s own mother, Margie, as a child, with Margie’s big sister Daisy and brother Charlie. There were photos of weddings and graduations, birthday parties and newborn babies. There was a photo of her dressed as a mermaid on her sixth birthday, surrounded by all her mermaid friends.

  As she looked at the mermaid party she was sharply reminded of the last week of school. For no apparent reason, her best friend, Brianna, had stopped talking to her, and so had everyone else. Chloe had no idea why, and no one would tell her. In English, her usual seat beside Brianna was taken by Stella, so she’d sa
t up the back by herself. At lunchtime, the girls were not sitting in their favourite place under the apple tree. They had moved lunch spots without telling her. When she’d said hi to Brianna in the locker room, Brianna had completely ignored her, and Chloe had scuttled away, alone and friendless, to spend lunchtime in the library. Chloe felt a fat tear roll down her cheek. Angrily she brushed it away before Nanna could see it.

  Nanna was searching the drawers in her wardrobe. ‘Where did I put it? Oh, I think it’s right on the top shelf. There it is – the blue-and-white tin at the back there. Can you reach it for me, please, Chloe?’

  Chloe dragged over a chair to stand on, reached up and lifted down a round biscuit tin, covered with tiny blue roses.

  ‘Is this it?’ asked Chloe, offering it to her grandmother. ‘It’s not very big.’

  Nanna turned away. ‘Mmmm,’ she replied. ‘You take the box into the lounge room and I’ll make the tea.’

  Chloe carried the tin back into the lounge room and placed it on the coffee table. She gazed at it, curious about its contents. Nanna returned in a few minutes with a pot of tea, teacups and two slices of crumbly lemon cake.

  Together, they looked at the tin on the table between them.

  ‘Shall we open it?’ asked Chloe.

  Nanna took a deep breath, then reverently opened the lid. Inside was a fat bundle of yellowed letters tied together with red satin ribbon. There was a slim collection of black-and-white photos. Nanna untied the letters and stroked them with her finger. She lay the photos down on the coffee table, her hands trembling.

  There were photos of old-fashioned cars, girls in floral dresses, beach picnics and a gracious-looking white house on stilts surrounded by tropical gardens.

  ‘Was that your house in Darwin?’ asked Chloe.

  Nanna nodded. ‘At Myilly Point.’

  There was a photo of a young man in uniform squinting into the camera, his slouch hat at a jaunty angle. There was a photo of a young Aboriginal woman, looking self-conscious and shy, with a tousle-headed toddler on her knee. There was a photo of two pretty teenage girls at the beach, their hair salty and windblown, laughing into the camera with their arms around each other’s necks.

  ‘Who are they, Nanna?’ asked Chloe.

  ‘That’s my brother, Edward, who went away to fight in Singapore,’ explained Nanna. ‘And that was Daisy and her son, Charlie – not your aunt and uncle, of course, but the original Daisy and Charlie, who lived with us in Darwin.’

  Nanna swallowed as she continued to brush the long-ago faces with her fingertips.

  ‘And that was me, with my best friend, Maude,’ confided Nanna, with a smile. ‘That photo was taken in 1942 by a handsome young man called Jack.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Chloe. ‘That was exactly seventy years ago.’

  ‘My goodness – could it be seventy years?’ replied Nanna. ‘Where on earth has the time gone? I still feel like a teenager inside.’

  Nanna poured out two cups of tea and handed Chloe a slice of lemon cake on a matching plate. ‘This lemon cake is absolutely delicious, if I do say so myself, and is guaranteed to make anyone feel a whole lot better. Do you know that most of the troubles of the world can be solved with a cup of tea, a good chat and lemon cake?’

  Chloe bit into the cake. It was delicious. The centre was runny with bittersweet lemon curd, while the base was sweet shortcake.

  ‘Let me tell you a story,’ Nanna began invitingly. ‘A story about friendship and sisters, about grief and love and danger, and about growing up . . .’

  1

  The House at Myilly Point

  Darwin, October 1941

  Poppy was sprawled along a branch of the old mango tree, her back against the gnarled grey trunk, reading a book. From the house she was completely invisible, cloaked by the thick, green leaves. Flopped at the base of the tree among the tangled roots lay her dog, Honey, tongue panting in the heat.

  A piercing scream broke the muggy stillness. It stopped and then started again, louder than before.

  Poppy looked up then dropped from the tree, lithe as a possum, to the muddy ground below.

  ‘Poppy! Poppy! Where are you?’ called her mother’s voice. ‘Come quickly.’

  Poppy flew across the garden, along the verandah and into the drawing room, her curly black hair flying and her dress rumpled.

  A middle-aged woman, her face red and perspiring, stood on the sofa, clutching a girl to her chest. The woman continued to scream at the top of her voice, her hair seemingly electrified with fear. The girl was frozen in horror, her mouth agape – but this might have been due to lack of oxygen because she was being squeezed so tightly.

  Poppy glanced over at her mother, intrigued by the commotion.

  Cecilia Trehearne was making low, soothing noises, trying to coax her guests down from their perch. ‘There, there, Mrs Tibbets – it’s nothing to be frightened of.’

  She gestured at Poppy. ‘It’s Basil. He’s under the sofa.’

  Poppy repressed a grin and dropped to her knees, groping under the furniture. She slowly withdrew her arm, entwined with a thick, golden-green snake about two metres long, marked with striking black-and-white diamonds. She draped the heavy body around her neck, holding the snake’s head in her palm, gently stroking his scaly skin. Mrs Tibbets screamed louder.

  ‘You really shouldn’t scream,’ Poppy told Mrs Tibbets. ‘Basil is lovely but he has a nasty bite if he gets upset.’

  The woman stopped hurriedly, staring transfixed at the huge snake.

  ‘Why don’t you put Basil back outside, Poppy?’ suggested Cecilia softly. ‘And bring in some tea for Mrs Tibbets and Maude. Daisy should have it nearly ready. And I think you must have been just on your way to get changed?’

  Poppy smiled – the humour of the scene in the sitting room just a few moments ago was too much to resist. She was grateful to her mother, giving her a chance to escape just so she could have a hearty chuckle on the way to the kitchen.

  When Poppy returned a few minutes later, her face suitably composed and bearing the heavy tea tray, Mrs Tibbets was sitting on the sofa, huffing slightly, with Maude close beside her. Poppy set the tea tray down in front of her mother.

  ‘Thank you, darling,’ her mother said, lifting the china teapot and pouring out a cup. ‘Mrs Tibbets, this is my daughter Poppy. I think she’s about the same age as your daughter Maude, so perhaps they’ll enjoy spending some time together while you are in Darwin. Poppy, the Tibbets have just moved in next door. I did remind you they were coming for tea.’

  Mrs Tibbets glanced over Poppy, noting the hastily brushed curls, the fresh blue dress and streak of mud on the back of her calf.

  Poppy plopped down onto a footstool, smiling at Maude. Maude smiled back rather shyly.

  ‘What was that thing?’ demanded Mrs Tibbets, fanning herself with her gloves.

  ‘That’s Basil, my pet diamond python,’ explained Poppy. ‘He’s lovely. He lives in the rafters of the verandah and eats all the mice and rats and tree frogs, although I don’t really like him eating the frogs. He usually only comes out at night, but perhaps something disturbed him.’

  ‘Is he really your pet?’ asked Maude, peeking up from under her eyelashes.

  ‘Yes, he comes when I drum on the verandah post – well, sometimes. He’s really very affectionate, although he doesn’t like strangers.’

  Mrs Tibbets shuddered at the memory.

  ‘Poppy has quite an unusual menagerie of pets,’ Cecilia explained, passing a teacup to Mrs Tibbets, then one to Maude. ‘She can show you some of them after tea if you like, Maude. So, how are you enjoying Darwin so far, Mrs Tibbets?’

  ‘It’s unbearably hot – and the humidity! Not to mention the mosquitoes and sandflies!’ Mrs Tibbets huffed again, delicately mopping her brow. ‘I worry about
Maude because she has such a delicate constitution. The tropical climate is not suited to her at all, but her father wouldn’t listen to me. He insisted we all come up to Darwin with him. I just hope it’s not the death of one of us.’

  Cecilia nodded politely, passing over a plate of egg sandwiches. Poppy squirmed.

  ‘Sandwich? The eggs are from our own chickens,’ offered Cecilia. ‘It’s the start of the wet season, but you do get used to it. And you came up from Sydney? My eldest daughter, Phoebe, is training to be a nurse down in Sydney. She says spirits are generally high down there, despite the war.’

  Poppy jiggled her knee, nearly upsetting the half-full teacup.

  ‘Thank you. The sea journey was dreadful, simply dreadful . . .’ Mrs Tibbets replied, helping herself to a dainty finger sandwich. ‘And we do miss our friends in Sydney. I am also frightfully concerned about Maude’s education – she has no hope of a decent schooling up here. How is it possible there is not even one high school in Darwin? But her father insisted it wouldn’t hurt her for a few months.’

  Cecilia poured some more tea. ‘I’m sure Maude will learn lots up here. Perhaps she could join Poppy for some of her lessons?’

  Mrs Tibbets studied Poppy carefully. Poppy had the feeling that Mrs Tibbets found her wanting compared to Maude’s sophisticated friends in Sydney.

  ‘I’m surprised you haven’t sent your daughter down south to boarding school,’ said Mrs Tibbets.

  Cecilia glanced fondly at Poppy. ‘Edward and Phoebe went to boarding school in Adelaide,’ she explained. ‘Bryony went for a while but she absolutely hated it. We decided the younger children should attend school here, and we’ve employed a governess to teach them for the last year or so.

  ‘Now, Poppy, why don’t you take Maude and show her your room and some of the animals?’

  Poppy leapt to her feet with relief.

  ‘Come on, Maude,’ invited Poppy with a generous smile. ‘I have two orphan baby possums that I’m rearing at the moment, and my dog, Honey, and the most beautiful little wallaby called Christabel. She lives in a sugar sack on the kitchen door . . . And there are the chooks and a cat and two pet tortoises named Tabitha and Tobias . . .’