The Forgotten Pearl

by Belinda Murrell

  ‘Cecilia, Poppy – there’s an evacuee train leaving Darwin this evening,’ Mark announced. ‘All women and children are to be on it. I want you to go home, get your bags and get on that train.’

  Cecilia looked around helplessly at the room crowded with wounded men.

  ‘But –’

  ‘No “buts”, Cecilia,’ Mark insisted.

  One of the soldiers took Mark by the arm. ‘Sorry, Doctor – the evacuee train left half an hour ago. It was jam-packed to the gunnels. Apparently they had to fire warning shots above the crowd to stop them from trying to stampede onto it. People are absolutely panicking with the rumours that the Japanese will be invading before dawn.’

  Mark wiped his brow wearily.

  ‘Doctor, we have another truckload of wounded coming in.’

  He smiled at Cecilia and Poppy. Cecilia smiled back.

  ‘You know we can’t leave all these patients to look after themselves, can we, Poppy?’ Cecilia said.

  Poppy smiled too, feeling a wave of pride surge through her. She was part of a team – a motley collection of medical professionals and volunteers who had suffered through a terrifying ordeal but were still achieving amazing things.

  ‘Of course we can’t, Mum.’

  ‘Well then, Poppet, you can come and give me a hand in the operating theatre,’ Mark suggested. ‘Our emergency lamps have died; you can hold up a torch for me so I can see what I’m doing.’

  A sister helped her scrub up and she followed her father into the theatre. She had to focus her torch on where the surgeons needed the light, trying not to think that the area she was illuminating was someone’s abdomen that had been ripped open by a bomb, or a stump that had once been a leg or an arm.

  At five o’clock, the patients in the kitchen came to beg Cecilia, Poppy and some of the other nurses to take a short break to drink hot tea and eat something. Poppy realised she had had nothing to eat since that peaceful breakfast on the verandah nine hours ago. Cecilia sent Poppy on ahead while she finished bandaging up a policeman with shrapnel lacerations.

  Poppy collapsed into a chair in the nurses’ dining room and closed her eyes. Now that she had stopped moving, her left arm stung painfully, her head ached and every muscle in her body hurt. She opened her eyes gingerly. Then she noticed today’s newspaper lying on the table: The Army News, Darwin, Thursday, February 19, 1942.

  A sentence leapt out at her from the front page – a quote from one of the military experts:

  ‘Australia is safe from immediate attack.’

  You must be joking, thought Poppy, remembering the events of the day: two air raids, hundreds killed and hundreds more injured, ships sunk, buildings shattered, planes destroyed. Explain that we’re safe to Iris, to Mrs Bald, to Jean and Eileen Mullen, to Emily Young and Freda Stasinowsky, to everyone else who was injured or killed.

  Tears filled Poppy’s eyes; she wiped them away angrily and picked up the newspaper. Prime Minister John Curtin was quoted on the front page:

  ‘Just as Dunkirk opened the Battle for Britain, Singapore opened the Battle for Australia.

  ‘On its issue, depended, not merely the fate of the Commonwealth but in a very large measure the fate of the English-speaking world . . . Protecting this country is no longer a question of contributing to the world war but resisting an enemy which threatened to invade our own shore.

  ‘Our honeymoon has finished. It is now work or fight as we have never worked or fought before.’

  Poppy sat up straighter, filled with resolution. Well, that is exactly what we have been doing, she thought. Working and fighting as we have never worked or fought before. We can turn the tide.

  Mark came in and sat down beside her, smiling wearily. A volunteer patient brought them both a cup of hot, strong tea. Poppy stirred in a spoonful of sugar and sipped appreciatively. Its warmth flooded her with a sense of comfort.

  ‘How are you holding up, Poppet?’ asked Mark, stirring his tea.

  ‘I’m okay,’ Poppy replied. ‘I’m exhausted, but I feel really good. I feel like I’ve helped to do something really worthwhile today.’

  ‘I’m so proud of you, Poppet. You’ve done an absolutely sterling job.’

  Just then Cecilia came in, looking pale and drawn. She hobbled a little and winced as she lowered herself into the chair.

  ‘I’d kill for a cup of tea,’ murmured Cecilia, closing her eyes and sighing.

  Mark frowned. ‘Are you all right, darling?’

  ‘Tired and feeling a little knocked around,’ Cecilia admitted, opening her eyes and trying to smile. ‘I feel a bit bruised from where I fell during one of the explosions, and it’s a hard to breathe when I walk.’

  ‘You didn’t tell me you were injured,’ Mark said, concerned. ‘Let me take a look at you. Where does it hurt?’

  ‘My left side and left elbow – I’m sure it’s nothing much,’ Cecilia insisted, but she winced severely as Mark probed her injured ribs. He took his stethoscope from around his neck and listened to her chest.

  ‘Breathe in slowly,’ he ordered. ‘Breathe out.’

  He frowned and then probed her elbow gently with his long, slim fingers. Cecilia gasped in pain and jerked away.

  ‘I can’t be sure without an X-ray, but I suspect you have two fractured ribs and a fractured elbow. Poppy, can you run and get your mum a cup of tea and some hot soup? Make sure you have some as well. I’ll go and fetch some bandages and something to take for the pain.’

  ‘I took some aspirin an hour or so ago,’ Cecilia said.

  ‘I’ll find you something stronger.’

  ‘No – I don’t want anything stronger or I won’t be able to focus on what needs to be done.’

  Mark stood up and smiled. ‘What needs to be done is for you to rest and drink some tea,’ he advised. ‘We’ve got some extra nurses now, who have come over from the Army hospital at Berrimah to help, so we need to look after you.’

  Mark returned in a few moments and took Cecilia aside to strap up her ribs and immobilise her arm in a sling. He then made her sit beside Poppy to rest and sip some soup.

  ‘It sounds like most of Darwin is being evacuated, except for men fit for military service,’ Mark explained. ‘There are rumours the Japanese might arrive at any time, and we are being told to prepare to evacuate the hospital before dawn, even though many of these men are barely out of the operating theatre.’

  Poppy rubbed the grit out of her eyes, trying to concentrate on what her father was saying.

  ‘They want us to move the patients to the Army hospital, which is already completely full, or evacuate the worst cases on the hospital ship Manunda tomorrow. But the nurses said the army hospital was bombed multiple times today as well, and the Manunda was bombed twice and has been severely damaged. I want to get you two out of Darwin as soon as possible.’

  ‘Do you mean the Japanese intentionally bombed both hospitals and the hospital ship?’ asked Cecilia.

  ‘Perhaps they didn’t see the huge red crosses painted on our white roof,’ Mark replied dryly.

  Poppy thought of the Japanese pilot who had tried to machine-gun them down outside the hospital. He must have known they were nurses and wounded patients. She picked up her pearl pendant and twisted it in her fingers.

  ‘I think the best plan is for you both to get on the next evacuee train if you can or, if not, go south by road to Adelaide River. It’s only seventy-odd miles away,’ Mark continued. ‘There, you can get on a train south. I wish I could take you, but there are so many wounded and dying men, I have to stay and help them.’

  ‘But, Mark, I can –’ began Cecilia.

  ‘Cecilia, I know you want to nurse them, too, but now your responsibility is to get Poppy to safety, and look after Daisy and Charlie. I want you to go home, get them both, fetch your bags and head
south. It might be a good idea to take my old rifle.’

  Cecilia took a deep breath. ‘All right, Poppy. Let’s go.’

  ‘One more thing,’ Mark said, in a gentler tone. ‘Apparently, Myilly Point has been badly damaged during the raids. Many of the houses have been destroyed. I don’t know what you’ll find at home.’

  Poppy caught her breath in pain when she stood – her whole body ached and throbbed. Cecilia and Poppy said their farewells to nurses, orderlies and doctors, both feeling that they were abandoning their colleagues. But the tension in the air was palpable. Everyone was sure it would only be a matter of hours before the Japanese would attack again.

  Mark walked them to the entrance of the hospital and hugged them both close.

  ‘Take care,’ he begged. ‘Leave as soon as you can, and try to send me word. I’ll feel better when I know you’re safe.’

  He whispered an aside to Poppy as he kissed her. ‘Poppet, look after your mother. I’m worried about her. Be brave. I love you.’

  Together, Cecilia and Poppy hobbled outside into the early evening light. To the west, the harbour was a disaster. Misshapen hulls, still smoking, were partially submerged. Wreckage and vast oil slicks floated on the water. Down on the beach, men were still working to retrieve the bodies washing up on the shore. The gardens around the hospital were decimated with fallen building rubble, wide bomb craters, twisted metal and collapsed walls.

  On the short walk back to their house on Myilly Point, they passed several homes that had been destroyed, the water tanks blown onto their sides. In other homes, whose owners had been evacuated, shipwrecked sailors had swum ashore and made temporary camps.

  At first glance, their own home appeared intact. Honey sprinted out from under the house and jumped up, her tail wagging madly as she whimpered. Poppy scooped Honey into her arms and wept for joy to find her alive. Honey wriggled out of her arms and ran into the garden, stopping and turning, whining, as though begging Poppy to follow. Poppy walked along the path after Honey, who bolted off towards the slit trench in the garden, pausing repeatedly to urge Poppy along.

  Poppy had a terrible sense of foreboding. ‘Mum! Mum! ’ she called, her voice rising in panic.

  Cecilia came running, and together they walked to the slit trench. Honey jumped down into the hole, whimpering. At the bottom, curled up together, were Daisy and Charlie. At first, Poppy thought they were asleep, with Daisy huddled protectively over her baby. Her once-starched, white apron, now soaked with blood, was tucked around him.

  ‘Daisy!’ shrieked Cecilia, her voice filled with panic. ‘Charlie!’

  There was no answer.

  ‘Don’t look,’ Cecilia cried, pushing Poppy away. ‘Stay back, Poppy. I don’t want you to come any closer.’ Cecilia dropped into the trench to check the bodies for any sign of life. ‘Poppy, fetch me some blankets, please, darling.’

  ‘Are they all right?’ Poppy begged, crouching down on the ground, her fingers clutched around her pearl.

  ‘No,’ sobbed Cecilia. ‘I’m afraid not. They’ve been shot by a machine-gun.’

  ‘No. No,’ Poppy screamed. ‘Daisy. Charlie.’

  Cecilia climbed out and hugged her daughter for many long minutes, both of them sobbing. Poppy felt the grief and panic well up, seizing her throat so that it was so tight she could hardly breathe. She clung tightly to her mother, shutting her eyes against the terrible sight of the open trench and those limp, lifeless bodies.

  ‘I can’t breathe,’ Poppy panted, struggling for tiny gasps of air. ‘I can’t breathe.’

  Cecilia rubbed her back soothingly. ‘You can breathe, darling,’ she assured her. ‘Just concentrate on breathing and nothing else.’

  Gradually, her chest loosened up and there were no more tears to cry.

  ‘Come on, Poppy,’ urged Cecilia at last, gently mopping Poppy’s face with her handkerchief. ‘I want to bury them here. I don’t want them to go in the mass grave with everyone else at Kahlin Beach.’

  Together they fetched some blankets, which Cecilia wrapped around the bodies, Charlie still clutched tightly in his mother’s arms. Poppy ran to Daisy’s room to find some little treasure she could bury with them. The room, next to the storerooms and kitchens, was simple and bare, a dark-grey blanket pulled up neatly over the bed.

  On the chest was a teddy bear that Poppy had given Charlie for his birthday. She took that and carefully laid it in the grave.

  Cecilia and Poppy worked hard to fill in the trench with soil from the surrounding embankment. Poppy’s mind was filled with visions of Daisy laughing, telling stories of her life on Never-Never Downs; Charlie giggling and holding up his arms for a cuddle; Daisy cooking and baking her favourite lemon cake; Charlie cuddling Coco the cat or chasing Christabel. They were both far too young to die like this.

  When the trench was filled with soil, Poppy went over to the sprawling frangipani tree and gathered a pile of creamy blossoms, which she laid carefully on the grave. Cecilia and Poppy stood together for a moment and said the Lord’s Prayer.

  ‘Peace be with them,’ Cecilia concluded, drying her eyes on her handkerchief. ‘Now, Poppy, it’s time for us to go. I promised your father we’d go south as soon as we could. We’ll load up the car and drive into town to see what’s the best way for us to leave. It’ll be sunset soon, so we need to hurry. We need food, water, blankets, toiletries and some essential clothes.’

  Poppy trudged to her room in a daze, Honey following at her heels. She felt like a limp rag doll, all feeling and grief wrung out of her. How could such a terrible thing happen? Why did Daisy and Charlie have to die in such a horrific way? What if the raid had happened half an hour earlier? I would have been at home with Daisy and Charlie, and I would have been sheltering in that trench. I would be dead now, too . . .

  Honey licked her hand and whined mournfully, gazing up at her with sad brown eyes. Poppy hugged Honey, then pulled herself together and set to work.

  Her bag had been packed for days. All she needed to grab were her pyjamas and toiletries. She took one last, slow look around her room: the two beds neatly made, the books stacked away on the shelf, the knick-knacks on top of the chest of drawers and Bryony’s left-behind cosmetics laid out on the dressing table. She breathed deeply and closed the door.

  She knew they were in a hurry but she couldn’t help but run into each room to say goodbye, trying to memorise her home.

  ‘Goodbye, Hippocrates,’ she whispered to the skeleton in her father’s study. ‘Goodbye, two-headed calf.’

  ‘Poppy,’ her mother called from the back of the house. ‘What are you doing?’

  With shaking hands, Cecilia carefully locked the back door after them.

  ‘Goodbye, Basil,’ Poppy whispered to the golden-green coil of snake in the rafters. ‘Go and take shelter in the garden. It might be safer.’

  Poppy loaded the two bags and blankets into the car boot with her father’s rifle, while Cecilia went to the kitchen to pack food and water. Poppy made a nest for Honey on the floor of the back seat.

  ‘Come on, girl,’ she urged. ‘In you hop.’ Poppy covered Honey with a blanket. ‘Stay there, girl, and don’t make a peep. It’s better if no one knows you’re there.’ Honey thumped her tail and curled up in a ball to sleep.

  Poppy prowled around the house, calling out to Christabel and Coco. There was no sign of them. At last, Poppy gave up, guessing they might have been frightened away by the explosions.

  In the kitchen, there were signs of interrupted preparations. A cup of cold, half-drunk tea sat on the kitchen table, beside a bowl full of flour and shredded coconut. A saucepan was knocked over onto the floor, its contents of sticky golden syrup spilled in a puddle. Ants swarmed around the puddle, feasting.

  The two tortoises, Tabitha and Tobias, swam around the fish tank on the sideboard. Poppy lifted the tank and
carried it down to the end of the garden where the ground was low and boggy.

  ‘Goodbye, Tabitha. Goodbye, Tobias. Enjoy your freedom.’

  Next were the two possums in the fruit box in the storeroom. Poppy carried them out to the mango tree and climbed, setting them carefully on a broad branch. The two possums blinked, round-eyed in the evening light, then scampered away.

  ‘Goodbye, Jessica. Goodbye, Clarissa. Stay away from Basil, or he might eat you.’

  ‘Poppy!’

  Cecilia had collected a pile of food supplies – tins of ham and baked beans, a tin-opener, two water bottles, a canister of tea, a loaf of bread and some biscuits, which were packed in a wooden box.

  ‘It’s time to go, darling,’ Cecilia reminded her.

  Poppy reached around her neck to twist the pearl that always hung there. But it was gone.

  ‘Mum, I’ve lost my pearl!’ Poppy cried. She dropped to her hands and knees and searched the floor frantically.

  ‘Poppy, we have to go,’ Cecilia reiterated. Poppy raced to the storeroom where she had just been to fetch the possums. There was no sign of the pendant.

  Cecilia hugged Poppy to her chest. ‘Darling, it could be anywhere. You might have dropped it in a million places at the hospital, on the beach, under the cliffs. When did you last have it?’

  ‘I can’t remember,’ Poppy confessed. ‘Maybe . . . I definitely had it at breakfast on the verandah.’

  ‘Poppy, we have to go.’

  15

  Escape

  Poppy stared out the window as they drove through Darwin. The town was shattered and eerily quiet. Rubble, masonry and twisted iron roofing littered the streets. Cecilia drove down the Esplanade, past the Hotel Darwin to Government House. Every building seemed to be damaged.

  An army truck was parked outside the Administrator’s residence. Two men carried boxes out of the house, past the armed guards, and loaded them carefully onto the back of the truck.

  ‘Mum, that’s Bryony’s friend, George,’ Poppy called. ‘He might be able to tell us the best thing to do.’