The Forgotten Pearl

by Belinda Murrell

  For a moment, Poppy felt awkward as Jack led her onto the floor, but then her borrowed dress and Bryony’s silver shoes seemed to make her skim above the dance floor. She smiled at Bryony and Danny, then Maude and Harry, then Cecilia and Mark as they floated past, then she smiled at Jack. She smiled until her cheeks were aching.

  Jack laughed and swung her out and around, then pulled her back in close.

  ‘I love this tune,’ Poppy said. ‘It makes me feel like the whole world is happy.’

  It was a feeling she never wanted to end.

  9

  The Warning

  Two days later, Poppy was asleep in her room when she was woken by a dreadful wailing. It took her a few moments to realise that the piercing sound was real and not just part of her dream.

  Poppy’s heart pounded; her mouth was dry with fear. Her cotton nightdress and sheets stuck to her sweaty skin.

  ‘Bryony? Bryony? Are you awake? What’s that?’

  ‘Wha –?’ Bryony raised herself on her elbow and pulled aside her mosquito netting.

  Honey whined from her basket at the foot of Poppy’s bed. She crept over and licked Poppy’s hand reassuringly.

  ‘Girls,’ Cecilia hissed from the doorway, ‘get up quickly. It’s the air-raid alarm.’

  ‘Air raid?’ asked Poppy. The alarm wailed on, rising and falling urgently.

  ‘Grab your pillow and a blanket and meet me at the back door,’ urged Cecilia. ‘Hurry. And be careful not to put on any lights! Don’t go outside without me.’

  Only that morning the girls had helped their mother and Daisy tack black fabric over all the windows to block out any chinks of light that might guide enemy planes towards their house.

  Poppy jumped out of bed obediently, grabbed her bedding and ran to the back door in bare feet, following Bryony. Cecilia met them a moment later, also carrying an armful of bedding.

  ‘Where’s Dad?’ asked Bryony fearfully.

  ‘He’s gone to help Daisy carry Charlie to the air-raid slit trench and get some water,’ explained Cecilia. ‘He’ll meet us there. Now, when I open the door, walk as fast as you can to the trench – don’t run – and stay down low.’

  Cecilia opened the door and ushered the girls out onto the verandah. ‘Go. Go,’ she shouted.

  There was no moon, so the garden was pitch black. Poppy and Bryony hurried down the steps and across the lawn. Poppy stubbed her bare toes on the edge of the stone path. It was impossible to see the trench in the darkness, and Poppy tumbled down into it, twisting her ankle. Bryony dropped down behind her, followed by Honey and Cecilia.

  ‘The animals!’ exclaimed Poppy, scrambling to her feet. ‘I’ve got to get Christabel and the possums.’

  ‘You will do no such thing, Poppy Trehearne,’ ordered her mother in a tone that Poppy had never heard before. ‘You will stay in this trench until the all clear sounds. Honey’s here and the others will just have to fend for themselves.’

  Cecilia set to work making the air-raid shelter as comfortable as possible, spreading out the blankets and pillows, and draping a mosquito net over them to keep away the vicious mosquitoes and sandflies. A couple of minutes later Mark arrived carrying a grizzling Charlie, while Daisy brought two bottles of water and a jar of biscuits.

  ‘Are you all right, Daisy?’ asked Cecilia. ‘Is Charlie okay?’

  ‘He’s scared. He doesn’t like the noise.’

  ‘I think we all are,’ Cecilia agreed, spreading out a blanket for Daisy.

  ‘Well, we’re lucky we spent all day yesterday digging this funk-hole,’ joked Mark, handing Charlie down to his mother. ‘I didn’t think we’d need it quite so soon. If I’d known I’d have made it a little more comfortable.’

  The girls smiled wanly at Mark’s feeble attempts at humour. Daisy squatted down on a blanket, cradling Charlie in her arms and crooning softly. His sobs gradually quietened. Poppy sat with Honey cuddled on her lap, her round eyes straining up into the darkness to see if she could see any planes.

  ‘Now that you’re all safe out here, I need to go to the hospital to make sure the patients are evacuated,’ said Mark.

  ‘No, Mark,’ Cecilia said, her voice rising in fear. ‘It’s too dangerous. Everyone is supposed to stay undercover until the all clear sounds.’

  ‘There are wounded men at the hospital who can’t walk,’ he explained. ‘It’s a huge job for the nurses and orderlies to get them all down to the beach. They’ll need help. You stay here and look after the girls.’

  Mark kissed her, then both of the girls.

  ‘Stay safe, my darlings. I’ll see you afterwards.’ He clambered out of the trench and disappeared into the darkness. Cecilia put an arm around each of the girls and hugged them to her.

  They could hear sounds of panic on the still night air. An air-raid warden shouted, ‘Turn off those bleedin’ lights.’ Glass smashed. A woman screamed.

  For nearly two hours, the family crouched in the bottom of the slit trench under the mosquito net, ears straining for the sound of planes or gunfire, legs cramping in agony. Poppy thought it seemed like an eternity. Charlie fell asleep on a pillow.

  ‘Would you like some biscuits?’ asked Daisy, offering around a jar. ‘I baked them this morning.’

  Poppy felt sick, her stomach knotted with anxiety. ‘No thanks, Daisy. I couldn’t eat a thing.’

  At last the all-clear siren sounded.

  ‘It’s over,’ murmured Cecilia, folding up the mosquito net. ‘We can go back to bed.’

  ‘Did anything happen? Did any planes come?’ asked Bryony, stretching.

  Poppy struggled to her feet, stretching out her numb legs, and lifted Honey out of the hole.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Cecilia said. ‘I didn’t hear any. I guess we’ll find out in the morning.’

  They slowly folded up the blankets and pillows and went back to bed.

  Poppy couldn’t sleep; her ears strained for sirens or planes or bombs. At last, she dropped off to sleep as dawn’s faint grey light shone through the black-out curtains.

  ‘Wake up, sleepyhead,’ called Maude’s voice from the hallway. ‘You’ve slept half the morning away.’ Maude walked in and perched on the end of Poppy’s bed.

  Poppy yawned and stretched. ‘What a night! Wasn’t it scary? What did you do?’

  ‘Dad hasn’t finished our trench, so we had to go down to the beach,’ explained Maude. ‘We were absolutely gobbled by mosquitoes and sandflies. It was horrible.’ Maude stretched out her pale legs to show the dozens of nasty red bites. She scratched one irritably.

  ‘We huddled in the bottom of our trench, but at least we had a mozzie net. Is there any news on the raid? Has anyone been hurt?’

  ‘Apparently, according to Berlin radio, Darwin was wiped off the map,’ explained Maude, bouncing up and down on the bed.

  Poppy sat up, her eyes wide with horror.

  ‘It hasn’t been,’ Maude assured her. ‘That was just the usual Nazi propaganda. There weren’t any bombs dropped at all – maybe it was just a reconnaissance flight – but the air-raid wardens smashed a few windows to put out any lights that were left on.

  ‘Dad says that the Administrator is pushing forward with plans to evacuate two thousand women and children. Mother is packing up, getting ready to go. Dad says the orders will come through at any time and there won’t be much notice.’

  Poppy nodded. ‘Mum says she won’t leave. She wants to stay here and work at the hospital as a nurse. We’re all going to stay.’

  ‘But you can’t – you have to go,’ Maude insisted with a frown. ‘It’s crazy to stay here.’

  Poppy put on her mutinous face and crossed her arms.

  ‘I was hoping we’d go together,’ coaxed Maude. ‘You could come to Sydney with us. You could come and stay with
us in Manly. I could show you everything in Sydney – it’s a beautiful place.’

  Poppy took Maude’s hand. ‘This is my home, Maude. Everything I love is here. I don’t want to run away.’

  ‘It’s nice in Manly, too.’ Maude pouted and crossed her arms. ‘And there’re no crocs or sandflies.’

  ‘So you keep telling me,’ Poppy snapped, her stomach twisting in fear and irritation. ‘I’m sick of hearing how nice Manly is. I don’t want to go there.’

  ‘I beg your pardon,’ retorted Maude, her face revealing her hurt. ‘Sorry for caring.’

  Maude stood up and stormed out. Poppy lay back in bed and pulled a pillow over her eyes. Why is everything going wrong? Why is everything falling apart? It isn’t fair!

  Rumours abounded of the town’s imminent evacuation; however, the details were still unclear, like whether it would be by road, sea or air.

  On Tuesday, Cecilia and Poppy walked into town to collect the mail and gather some news. Near the courthouse, they bumped into Iris, who was on her way back to work.

  ‘Have you seen the newspaper?’ asked Iris, brandishing a copy of the Northern Standard. ‘They’ve announced details of the evacuation. All women and children will be compulsorily evacuated, with the first party leaving within forty-eight hours.’

  ‘Can they do this?’ asked Poppy. ‘Can they make us go?’

  ‘They say they can – only women in essential services are to stay,’ replied Iris.

  ‘We won’t be going,’ Cecilia said staunchly. ‘They can say what they like, but I won’t be forced out of my home town by the Administrator. I’ll wait till the Japanese do that.’

  Iris nodded fervently in agreement.

  ‘What about you, Iris? Are you and your mother going?’ asked Poppy. ‘Will you go back to Adelaide?’

  Iris shook her head. ‘My boss told me I should get out as soon as I can,’ she admitted. ‘The post office has also given mum and the other female telephonists the opportunity to leave, but we’ve all decided to stay. The communications at the post office are absolutely vital, so we think we’d be letting everyone down if we evacuated just because the Japanese are threatening to bomb us. Think about the English – they’ve been braving German bombs and aeroplanes for months.’

  Cecilia squeezed Iris’s hand.

  ‘That’s how we feel,’ confessed Cecilia. ‘I just can’t walk away from everything here. I feel like that’s inviting the Japanese to take it away from us. What hope would we have then?’

  ‘They wouldn’t dare,’ cried Iris. ‘I’d rather die than let that happen.’

  Poppy gazed over Darwin Harbour, which was crowded with troop carriers, warships and barges. Dozens of men scurried along the long L-shaped wharf, unloading and moving supplies. The scene was so different to what it had been just a few short weeks before.

  ‘Do you know, I was just talking to my friend Audrey at the State Shipping Company,’ said Iris. ‘She’s having a nightmare trying to organise who’s going, where and when. She’s been inundated with men, begging, bribing, bullying her to get them on a ship out of Darwin.

  ‘One threw a wad of money on the counter and ordered her to get him a place. She asked him if he didn’t think that place should be given to a child or a mother. He said no, so she threw the money back at him.’

  ‘Fear does strange things to people,’ Cecilia admitted. ‘It brings out the very best and the very worst.’

  The first spits of an afternoon tropical storm began to hit. In moments, the rain was pouring down in torrents. The road turned to thick, churned mud. Pedestrians scattered for cover. Poppy could feel warm rivulets of water on her forehead, running down her cheeks and dripping off her chin. She stood still, letting the water drench her hair, hoping the rain could wash away the sick, cold feeling in the pit of her stomach.

  ‘Come on, Poppy,’ urged Cecilia, taking her daughter’s hand and squeezing it. ‘Let’s go home.’

  10

  Farewell

  A loud rapping on the front door announced the arrival of a harried warden, his uniform already drenched in sweat. He carried an officious-looking list several pages long that was crisscrossed with pencil marks. Honey barked loudly in warning, her hackles raised.

  ‘Is your mother home, Poppy?’ asked the warden.

  ‘I’ll just fetch her,’ she replied, feeling a sudden headache coming on. ‘She’s in the kitchen.’

  Honey stood guard over the warden until Poppy and her mother returned. The dog ran to Poppy, her tail wagging enthusiastically now that her job protecting the family was done. Poppy leant against the verandah post, anxious to know what the man had to say.

  ‘Good morning, Mr Anderson,’ Cecilia said. ‘What can I do for you?’

  ‘G’day, Mrs Trehearne,’ the warden replied, tipping his helmet at her. ‘As you know, we’ve begun evacuating the women and children. Two hundred odd left yesterday on the Koolinda. Tomorrow, more than five hundred leave on the Zealandia, and you and your daughters are on the list.’

  Poppy breathed in deeply. This was the news she had been dreading.

  ‘Each person can take one calico bag of toiletries, plus a small suitcase of clothing weighing no more than thirty-five pounds, two blankets and a waterbag,’ explained the warden. ‘You can’t take any other personal effects. I also need to remind you that all domestic pets are to be destroyed before you leave. We don’t have the food or the manpower to feed them after you’ve gone.’

  ‘No!’ Poppy wailed, dropping to her knees and burying her head on Honey’s back. Tears streamed down her face and into Honey’s fur. Destroy Honey and Coco and Christabel and all the other animals? That’s impossible. I could never let them do that.

  ‘I’m sorry, Poppy,’ apologised the warden, ‘but those are the orders. It’s war and we have to do what’s best for the country.’

  How could destroying Honey be good for my country? thought Poppy.

  Cecilia squeezed Poppy’s shoulder gently to give her courage. ‘Thank you, Mr Anderson, but my daughters and I won’t be requiring those places on the ship tomorrow,’ she replied firmly. ‘We are happy to give them up to other evacuees who have a greater need to leave.’

  The warden frowned, tapping his pencil against his clipboard. ‘You’ll have to go at some stage, Mrs Trehearne. The top brass want all civilians out of Darwin to free up supplies and infrastructure for the military.’

  ‘I thought it was a noble gesture to save women and children first?’ asked Cecilia with a wry smile.

  ‘That too,’ he said, pushing his helmet back on his head.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Cecilia assured him. ‘I’m a trained nurse and will be working in an essential service at the hospital.’

  ‘What about your daughters?’ he challenged. ‘All children have to go.’

  ‘My daughters are no longer children, thanks to the war,’ Cecilia replied. ‘They are budding young women and have a right and a responsibility to help their country, too.’

  Cecilia smiled at the warden warmly. ‘I know you’re just doing your job, Mr Anderson, but surely there are pregnant women, mothers with young children and people who are old and sick who should go before us?’

  The warden sighed in defeat and reluctantly crossed out their names. ‘All right,’ he conceded. ‘I’ll put you down on one of the later ships.’

  The warden trudged next door to the Tibbets’s house.

  Cecilia gave Poppy a huge hug. Poppy relaxed against her mother’s chest, breathing in her soft, familiar scent.

  ‘Don’t worry, Poppy darling,’ her mother soothed. ‘We’ll find a way to stay as long as we can.’

  That evening, Poppy found her father sitting on the verandah in his favourite white wicker chair, staring out north over the Arafura Sea. Thick, grey clouds boiled on the horizon,
bloodied by the setting sun. Lightning crackled and flashed. A pile of medical reports lay unread on the table beside him. Her father looked tired and suddenly much older, with dark circles under his eyes and streaks of grey in his hair that she hadn’t noticed before.

  ‘Come and join me, Poppy,’ he invited, gesturing to the chair next to him. ‘I’m taking a break from my paperwork. How have you been? I don’t feel like I’ve spoken to you for days. It’s been so busy at the hospital.’

  The cheerful voices of the Andrews Sisters crooning ‘Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy’ drifted out from the record player in the sitting room. Basil the diamond python slithered down the verandah post and set off across the floorboards, searching for a tasty meal.

  ‘I’m fine,’ replied Poppy, sitting down. Honey flopped at her feet, panting.

  ‘I heard that Maude and her mother are leaving on the Zealandia tomorrow, sailing back to Sydney,’ Mark said.

  ‘Hmmm.’ Poppy scuffed her shoe back and forth on the floorboards.

  ‘Shouldn’t you be over there helping Maude pack?’ asked Mark, raising his eyebrow.

  Poppy examined the toe of her shoe, streaked with mud. ‘Perhaps,’ she replied.

  ‘Did you have a fight with Maude or something?’ asked Mark. ‘I haven’t seen her around for a few days. Not since just after the air-raid alarm.’

  ‘No, well – sort of.’ Poppy leant down to stroke Honey. ‘Maude said she was hoping we’d be evacuated together. She wanted me to go and stay with her in Sydney. She said she was looking forward to showing me everything in Manly. I told her I didn’t want to go . . . Actually, I told her I was sick of hearing how beautiful everything is in Manly.’

  Poppy flushed. She felt ashamed of snapping at her friend.

  ‘Ah, I see,’ replied Mark. ‘So, how do you feel about that?’

  ‘Well, kind of stupid really.’