The Forgotten Pearl

by Belinda Murrell

  Cecilia pulled over and Poppy jumped out of the car. George looked nervous.

  ‘Hello, George,’ greeted Poppy.

  ‘Oh, um, Poppy, Mrs Trehearne,’ George stammered uncomfortably, taking off his hat. ‘What are you still doing here? The last women and children were meant to leave by train this afternoon.’

  ‘We’ve been working at the hospital with Dad, dealing with the wounded,’ Poppy replied. ‘There’re lots of nurses still there. What are you doing here?’

  George shifted and glanced over his shoulder to where his companion had gone back inside the residence.

  ‘We are evacuating the Administrator’s wine cellar,’ George confessed.

  ‘His wine cellar?’ demanded Poppy. A wave of anger surged through her belly and threatened to erupt. Poppy thought of Daisy and Charlie, of Iris and her parents, of all the hundreds of people who were injured and dying or already dead – and the head of the administration was worrying about his wine cellar.

  ‘Yes – plus all the glassware and silver . . .’ George continued.

  Poppy glared into the back of the truck. There were dozens of boxes of wine and liquor, plus crates stuffed with crockery, glasses and silverware. Poppy could identify the regal crest on some of the teacups.

  ‘But we have hundreds of wounded men at the hospital who need treatment and help. Surely you should be evacuating them before the teacups?’ Poppy insisted, her face flushing in her weariness and anger.

  ‘I’m under orders from the Administrator himself,’ George said defensively. ‘He’s pulled several of the police officers off duty to make sure it’s done as soon as possible. He’s concerned about looting – apparently some of the soldiers helped themselves to food from the Administrator’s kitchen this afternoon.’

  ‘Well, shouldn’t the policemen be on duty stopping the looting, not acting as removalists?’ demanded Poppy, tossing her head. She stamped her foot in frustration.

  Cecilia opened the car door, wincing as she climbed out, and shuffled to join them. Cecilia put her hand on her daughter’s shoulder to calm her. Poppy bit her lip.

  ‘George, we need to leave Darwin as soon as possible,’ Cecilia confided. ‘Do you know when the next train leaves or where we can get petrol?’

  George scratched his head. ‘There’s another train due to leave at nine o’clock tonight, but there have been riots down at the railway station. The provosts have been firing over people’s heads, trying to deter able-bodied men from stealing places on the train. The advice has been completely contradictory, so who knows what’s going on? There’s no petrol to be had for civilians without written permission from the Administrator – and he isn’t giving that to anyone.

  ‘People have been fleeing south by bicycle, car, foot, horseback – even the sanitary truck,’ George continued. ‘If I were you, I’d try to fight my way onto that train, though I did hear there was an unexploded bomb on the train line, or just head south however you can.’

  Cecilia grimaced in pain, holding her hand over her broken ribs. ‘Thank you, George. We appreciate your help. Come on, Poppy.’

  Cecilia drove south-east to the railway station at Parap. Crowds of men were huddling around the station, pushing and shoving, begging for a place on the train. A military policeman screamed at Cecilia, pointing his gun at the car.

  ‘Turn off those danged lights before I shoot ’em out. Don’t youse know the bleedin’ Japs are comin’ back?’

  Cecilia hurriedly extinguished the headlights and pulled over to assess the situation, leaving the engine running.

  ‘Git back all youse bleedin’ low-lives before I lose my dang patience!’ shouted the provost, firing his gun over the heads of the shoving crowd. They immediately stopped and retreated, before surging forward again. ‘’Ow many times do I ’ave to tell youse? The dang train’s full!’

  ‘Let us on, sah,’ begged a Chinese cook. ‘We are civilians – we must get out before the Japanese land. They’ll massacre us all.’

  ‘Well, walk, ya yellow-livered scumbags. Youse’re not getting on this train!’

  The provost let off another round of gunshots. The crowd scattered, with several men running towards the Trehearnes’ car, pointing and shouting, demanding a lift.

  ‘Lock your door, Poppy,’ called Cecilia, accelerating rapidly and grinding through the gears. The car lurched forward and Cecilia drove back towards town, leaving the unruly crowd behind.

  ‘What shall we do?’ asked Cecilia, her voice rising in panic. ‘We don’t have enough petrol to drive to Adelaide River. That provost is drunk and I don’t fancy trying to fight our way onto the train through that crowd.’

  Poppy thought carefully, considering their options. We could wait until morning and try to get on our planned flight, but that might be too late, and for all we know our plane was destroyed today like most of the others. We could head back to the hospital and see what arrangements are being made for the patients – but then when Singapore fell, injured soldiers were left behind to be captured and killed by the Japanese because the civilians had refused to evacuate in time. No – we have to get out of Darwin ourselves.

  ‘We could harness up Angel and drive down in the cart?’ suggested Poppy. ‘We could drive for an hour or two, then camp in the bush. We’d be in Adelaide River by tomorrow afternoon.’

  Cecilia closed her eyes, then accelerated, smiling at Poppy. ‘All right, let’s go home and start again.’

  Back at Myilly Point, Angel was harnessed to the cart and all the luggage was transferred, as well as Honey and a couple of camping swags. They headed around the outskirts of town and onto the main road going south, bypassing the gun-toting provosts and the noisy crowd at Parap. Cecilia drove, drooping with exhaustion and pain.

  Two hours later, they pulled off into the bush.

  ‘We’ll just sleep for a few hours and be off before dawn,’ Cecilia promised. Angel was tied up to a tree on a long rein so she could crop the wispy grass. Cecilia and Poppy wrapped themselves in their swags and a blanket, side by side, to make a rough bed on the hard, packed earth. Honey crawled in to sleep with Poppy, giving her immense comfort after this unbelievably impossible day.

  Poppy had no sooner closed her eyes when she was awoken by Cecilia in the grey half-light before dawn. Cecilia glanced nervously towards the north. Memories of yesterday flooded back: the bombs, the operations, the deaths. Poppy shut them out – she didn’t want to think about Daisy or Charlie or Iris or anyone else. She just wanted to focus on surviving.

  ‘We should get going,’ Cecilia hissed. ‘I don’t think it’s safe to light a fire or cook breakfast. Let’s just get going and we can eat on the way.’

  It only took a few moments to roll up the swags and blankets and throw them onto the cart. Poppy felt disgusting in the dirty clothes she had worn since yesterday morning.

  Angel was untied and they were on their way.

  The dirt road south was strewn with detritus, relics of a panicked populace in full flight: a bicycle with two flat tyres, a truck run out of fuel, a bag fallen from a roof, a pile of outhouse pans that had fallen off the sanitary truck on a sharp corner, a camp of soldiers sleeping on the side of the road.

  This teeth-juddering, bone-shuddering corrugated road was the only overland access to Darwin, meandering for over three thousand kilometres south. During the wet season, much of it was impassable, boggy mud, while in the dry season it was composed of vast drifts of bulldust, potholes and wickedly sharp rocks. The train line was not much better and finished in the middle of nowhere, just over five hundred kilometres south.

  After another hour of plodding along, Cecilia handed the reins to Poppy.

  ‘I’m sorry, darling,’ Cecilia said. ‘Do you think you can drive for a while? This rutted road is jarring my ribs and my elbow – I’m in agony. I might feel better if I lie down
for a while.’

  Poppy took over and Cecilia burrowed in her medical kit, searching for aspirin. She lay down on her uninjured side on top of the swags and bags, breathing deeply, trying to still the pain. She eventually dropped into an uneasy sleep. Honey snuggled into Poppy’s side on the driver’s seat, snuffling about at all the unknown smells and sights.

  The endless grey-green brush stretched out on either side of the track for hundreds of kilometres, relentless in its sameness. Angel plodded on, hour after hour. The sun rose higher and higher in the sky, beating down on their necks and heads. Honey lay down and slept, snoring softly in the heat.

  The kilometres juddered by, one after the other. Poppy could feel her skin burning and her head aching under her straw hat. She swigged water from the water bottle and offered some to Honey in the palm of her hand. Cecilia woke and made them a meal of cold baked beans on stale bread. The day passed in a blur, but Poppy felt safer the further they drove from Darwin. Sometimes they were passed by army trucks or cars or bicycles – even a garbage truck – all heading south, billowing up a cloud of dust on the unsealed road.

  It was evening when they finally pulled into Adelaide River. The tiny township was chaotic, with not enough food or water for all the evacuees who had arrived over the last day. The soldiers had little direction and were trying to decide what to do with all these people. Cecilia and Poppy at least had food and could make a welcome cup of tea over a campfire, but there was no water for washing. They camped another night, sleeping on the ground. The next morning they tethered Angel and the cart out the front of the railway station and went inside to enquire about trains going south.

  Two soldiers were letting on the wounded and older men, but turning back a horde of young, fit men, who could be enlisted in the army.

  ‘Let the ladies through,’ an old Greek man called out when he saw Cecilia, Poppy and Honey. ‘Ladies coming through.’

  The men stepped aside to let them pass, tipping their hats.

  ‘There’s a train leaving in an hour,’ explained the soldier. ‘You can get on it, but you won’t be able to take your dog, I’m afraid. Our orders are clear: no domestic pets are to be evacuated. You should have destroyed her before you left Darwin.’

  ‘Please,’ begged Poppy, her throat closing over in panic. ‘Please – I can’t leave her behind.’

  ‘Please let her on, sir,’ added Cecilia, her hand on Poppy’s shoulder. ‘The dog won’t be any trouble. My daughter’s been through so much.’

  Honey seemed to sense that her life was in the balance, and she looked up at the soldiers with liquid, golden eyes. Honey leapt up on her back legs and twirled around, performing a perfect pirouette. The two soldiers laughed.

  ‘Isn’t she a treat?’ asked the other soldier.

  ‘I can’t let dogs on the train,’ reiterated the first soldier firmly. Then he winked. ‘But what I don’t know won’t hurt me, will it?’

  Poppy smiled and bent to pat Honey and hide her tears.

  ‘We’ll go and get our bags,’ said Cecilia, ‘and thank you, sir. You’re very kind. By the way, we have a horse and cart. Have you any ideas what we can do with her?’

  The soldier pointed across the road to a paddock. ‘We have a good collection already across the road,’ he explained. ‘Put her in there with the other horses and we’ll look after her. Park the cart over there and leave the harness in the back. We’ll find a use for it. Take care, ladies, and have a good trip.’

  Angel was unharnessed and set free in the paddock. Poppy rubbed her nose affectionately and hugged her neck. ‘Goodbye, Angel. Thank you for bringing us here safely.’ Angel harrumphed, then gladly wandered off to graze with the other horses.

  Poppy unpacked most of her bag to make room for Honey, then closed her safely inside, leaving a small gap for air. ‘Good girl, Honey. Now stay quiet.’ She wrapped the remaining clothes in a blanket.

  Cecilia and Poppy made their way onto the train, carrying their belongings. Until yesterday, the trucks had been used to carry cattle to the meatworks in Darwin and, despite being roughly swept out, they still stank of urine and cow manure. They found a corner of the truck to spread out a blanket and make a camp on the filthy floor, where they huddled together. Poppy was too frightened to let Honey out of the bag until the train clanked its way out of the station and they were safely heading south.

  The three-thousand kilometre journey from Darwin to Adelaide was to take them a week. It took the whole day just to chug south to the end of the railway line at Larrimah, then they disembarked and joined a convoy of army trucks to take them the next thousand-odd kilometres of rough, unsealed roads to Alice Springs. At least they had a rough bench seat and a canvas canopy to shelter them for the three-day journey. At night, they camped in the bush on the side of the road.

  The red dust billowed up and sifted into everything – eyes, nose, mouth, bags, underwear. Poppy’s hair was stiff with dirt. Once along the route, the drivers stopped so they could all splash in the creek to rinse off, but within half an hour of driving they were all as dirty as before.

  The soldiers on the convoy were kind and tried to make the journey less tedious – singing songs, playing the mouth organ, telling jokes, organising card games and encouraging Honey to do tricks in exchange for titbits. Many of them were wounded and Cecilia busied herself tending to their injuries.

  Poppy just felt numb, like something had died inside her. She wondered if she would ever feel happy again – if she could ever feel truly alive again. The tears brimmed just below the surface, threatening to spill over. Cecilia held her close with her good arm.

  At Alice Springs they were billeted at the showground until they could get on a train to Adelaide. It was a slow, painful trip. The constant jolting and hard, wooden benches were agony for Cecilia’s fractured ribs. At night they could hear dingoes howling in the desert. There was nothing to see but bleak, vast desert. There was nothing to do but worry about Mark and Edward, Bryony and Phoebe, Maude and Jack, and if they would ever see any of them again.

  At last, in Adelaide, Cecilia rented a room and they had a long, hot bath to soak the stench and ingrained dust from their skins. They slept in a real bed for the first time in over a week. Poppy felt the cold, hard stone of fear and grief in the pit of her stomach start to soften. The respite was short-lived – they were soon on a train again for another journey of more than two thousand kilometres from Adelaide to Sydney, via Melbourne.

  On the softer upholstered seats of the overnight train to Sydney, Cecilia finally seemed to relax, no longer braced against the endless jolting, so painful to her fractured ribs. She began to reminisce, sharing stories from Poppy’s childhood, then she moved on to stories of her own childhood, growing up on the south-west coast of Cornwall, near Penwith.

  As Cecilia told her stories, Poppy felt herself gradually unwind, the fear abating.

  ‘Did you know that your great-grandmother, Tamsyn Tredennick, was a Pellar?’ asked Cecilia. ‘A healer or, as some folk thought, a white witch?’

  Poppy was intrigued and sat forward, her green eyes bright with interest.

  ‘A white witch? I know you always said we come from a long line of Cornish healers, but you’ve never mentioned witchery before!’

  Cecilia smiled and stroked Poppy’s hair. ‘In Cornwall, Pellars were the village wise women,’ she explained. ‘It was a hereditary occupation, passed down from mother to daughter for centuries. The Pellars would cure illnesses and infertility, heal people and cattle, deliver babies and set broken bones.’

  Cecilia gestured to her own fractured elbow nestled in its sling.

  ‘They were very powerful women,’ continued Cecilia. ‘People would make long and difficult journeys to consult the Pellars in our family. However, they were not only healers. They had a reputation for foresight and making divinations, seeing what the future would b
ring.’

  Poppy immediately thought of waking to her mother’s screams, of the nightmares of Edward being injured when Singapore fell. Does Mum have the power of second sight?

  ‘The Pellars were also believed to have the power to make curses and to lift ill-wishing,’ Cecilia told her. ‘One of the skills each daughter learnt from her mother was the skill to make charms. The Pellars would sell small charm bags containing magic powders and written charms. Villagers believed the Pellars had the power to reverse bad luck and even find lost items.’

  Poppy laughed. ‘Now that would come in handy!’ she joked. ‘Did the charms work? I mean, could your grandmother Tamsyn really do magic? Was she really a witch? And if she was a witch, what about you? Did you learn, too?’

  Cecilia closed her eyes in concentration. ‘Turn thee into a frog,’ she thundered, shooting her finger out at Poppy dramatically. She peered at her daughter, her green eyes sparkling with mischief. ‘No? Well, I guess my cursing techniques are a bit rusty!’

  Poppy giggled, pushing her mother’s curse finger away.

  ‘The Pellar power had a lot to do with the magic of suggestion,’ Cecilia explained. ‘It’s a little like the way an Aboriginal is said to fade away and die if a medicine man points a bone at him. The mind is so powerful that if people truly believe something, it often comes true. I think my grandmother’s charms often worked the same way.’

  Cecilia gave Poppy a hug and said, ‘My grandmother did pass her knowledge on to my mother, but by late last century, people no longer believed in witches and curses in quite the same way. My mama was the village midwife and healer, but by the time I was growing up, science had taken sway. My mother taught me all she knew, but to work as a healer I had to train as a nurse at Penzance, just like Phoebe is doing now in Sydney.’

  Poppy gazed out the window at the rolling farmland of New South Wales whizzing past.

  ‘I just want to say how proud I am of the way you worked in the hospital in Darwin during the bombing,’ Cecilia said, her eyes bright with emotion. ‘You were brave, steady and calm. I think you would make a wonderful healer, too, if you want. The Pellar gifts flow in your veins.’