by Judy Nunn
‘Sik long samting,’ the woman shook her head, ‘mi no save.’
Jane shared a look with Godfrey. ‘Soem mi,’ she said to the woman, and she and Godfrey followed her to a hut at the far end of the village.
A girl of about fifteen sat on the floor and beside her, on a woven mat, lay a boy of five or six, his head resting in the girl’s lap. The girl was humming gently and stroking his forehead whilst the child stared listlessly into space.
Jane knelt beside them and the girl cast an anxious glance at her mother. The woman nodded her acquiescence and, as Jane cradled the child’s head in her hands, the girl moved to one side.
Jane eased the little boy’s head down on the mat and felt his brow, damp with perspiration, his temperature was high. Removing the cloth that covered him, she rested her ear against his bare chest and listened to his breathing. It was laboured. Then, supporting his back, she sat him up and told him to cough.
‘Olsem mi,’ she said, and she coughed loudly by way of demonstration. The boy obediently copied her. His cough was deep and wheezing. ‘It’s a bronchial infection,’ she said to Godfrey. ‘I don’t think it’s pneumonia. At least, not yet,’ she added ominously, looking up at the thatched roofing of the hut. It would storm tonight, Godfrey had said. The child must not be exposed to the elements. ‘Do you think they’d let me take him home?’ she asked.
‘I don’t think that would be wise, Jane,’ Godfrey replied. She had no idea what she was doing, he thought. What if the child died?
But Jane knew exactly what she was doing. ‘He’s at risk here,’ she said. ‘I want to take him home.’ Godfrey shook his head, and was about to attempt further dissuasion, but she said firmly and unequivocally, ‘It’s much easier if you ask them, Godfrey. But if you don’t, then I’ll ask them myself.’
They stared at each other for a moment and Godfrey couldn’t help but admire the strength of purpose he saw in her eyes. He turned to the woman and spoke in Melanesian, the mother and daughter exchanging a fearful look. The girl started shaking her head and said something in reply; she obviously didn’t wish to trust her little brother to the care of the white people.
‘Tell them he won’t be safe when the storm comes,’ Jane said. ‘He needs to be kept warm and dry. Tell them I’ll look after him.’
Godfrey spoke at some length to the woman and her daughter, but both of them still appeared undecided.
Jane pulled the cloth back over the child’s chest and rose to her feet. ‘Mi lukaotem pikinini blong yu.’ Having said that she would look after the woman’s child, she wanted to add ‘I promise’. But she didn’t know the word for ‘promise’, so she took the woman’s hand in both of hers instead and smiled her assurance.
It was enough. She could see that the woman trusted her.
‘Nem blong boe blong mi Sami,’ the woman said, and she even managed a tremulous smile as she told Jane the name of her son.
‘Mi lukaotem Sami,’ Jane promised, and the woman nodded.
Godfrey sought out Moli and explained the situation to him, for the woman was a widow and Moli’s permission was necessary if they were to take the child from the island.
Half an hour later, Rama and another young islander rowed the three of them ashore in one of the larger canoes, Jane cuddling the child in her lap. And in the buggy on their way back to Vila, little Sami was once again nestled against her. He’d fallen asleep now, lulled by the swaying of the buggy, and it was Godfrey who opened the conversation. The two of them had been silent whilst the little boy’s wide brown eyes had stared up at Jane. He’d stared, not in fear but in fascination. Listless as he was, Sami had appeared to find her a great source of interest.
‘Will he be all right?’ Godfrey asked.
‘I hope so,’ she said. ‘But he wouldn’t be if he stayed on the island.’
Godfrey watched her as she gently stroked the head of the sleeping child. He remembered their first meeting. Was it only two weeks ago? He’d thought she had spine but that she didn’t yet know it. Well, he’d been right. She certainly had spine, he thought, to take such a risk.
He changed the subject. ‘I owe you an explanation,’ he said. ‘I wasn’t trying to shock you when I told you I was Moli’s brother-in-law.’ He wondered if he had been. There was something about Jane Thackeray that made him want to impress her. ‘The fact is, it’s true, Moli’s sister was my wife.’
In her worry for the child Jane had completely forgotten the bombshell Godfrey had dropped with his seemingly casual statement. She was instantly intrigued. Perhaps this would explain the mystery that surrounded him.
‘I was a young man in my thirties, she was ten years younger.’ Godfrey concentrated on the reins and Luke and the track ahead; he had told no-one his story. ‘They accepted me in the village. Perhaps because I made their life easy,’ he said. ‘I’d be gone for a long time and then I’d return with money, and gifts they could barter, it was probably that simple. And my wife had a son. She called him Tom.’ He smiled. ‘Pola was very proud that her son was half English.’
Jane watched him silently. He was reliving the past, speaking as much to himself as he was to her. He looked old, she thought. She often forgot that Godfrey was an old man, there was such an innate energy about him. But he looked his age now, old and tired.
‘I liked having a son,’ he said, ‘but I wasn’t a very good father, I was never there. Pola didn’t seem to mind, though. She had her family, not just her parents and Moli, but the rest of the village.’ He glanced at Jane. ‘You’ve seen what they’re like, the whole village is a family.’
‘We lived like that for nearly twenty years,’ he continued, ‘and we were happy. There was a party every time I came home to Pola and Tom, the whole village would celebrate.’ He took a deep breath before he went on. ‘And then one day the party was over. Just like that. I came home and there was no Tom. I had no son, my wife was a broken woman and the village was devastated.’
‘What happened?’ Jane asked.
‘Blackbirders. Tom wasn’t the only one. They’d taken every young buck they could lay their filthy hands on, the murdering bastards.’ It had been over twenty years ago; strange, Godfrey thought, how in the telling he still couldn’t disguise his anger. He paused to regain control. What was the point? he told himself. Anger achieved nothing, and at his age it should be avoided.
‘I spent the next several years trying to trace him, but it was useless.’ He shrugged. ‘And Pola died a year later. Diphtheria. Another white man’s legacy,’ he said with bitterness. ‘An epidemic, it wiped out half the village on Mele, and a whole lot of other villages as well.’
They were off the track now and on the road into Vila. ‘So there you are, Jane, that’s my story,’ he concluded. ‘I’ve never told anyone before.’
Jane wondered why she was the person he’d chosen to tell, but she felt privileged. ‘I’ll keep it a secret,’ she promised.
He’d known that she would. ‘Oh there’s no real need. Feel free to tell Martin if you wish, husbands and wives should have no secrets.’
It was dusk when they reached the cottage. Godfrey alighted and took the sleeping child from her, carrying him inside. ‘I’ll call back tomorrow and see how he is,’ he said when she’d bedded the little boy down.
‘Thank you, Godfrey.’ She kissed his cheek. ‘It’s been an extraordinary day.’
‘Yes it has. In every conceivable way.’ Godfrey knew why he’d chosen to tell Jane his story. Foolish old man he may be, and a good fifty years past his prime, but he was in love with Jane Thackeray. She would never know it of course, but he rather liked admitting the fact to himself. It made him feel so very alive. ‘Good night, my dear.’
The next several days were crucial in the recovery of little Sami. He broke into a fever, as Jane had suspected he might, sweating and shivering despite the heat. She bathed him and kept him warm and, when the fever had abated, she fed him the soup Mary had cooked. She’d instructed Mary how to prepare the chic
ken broth, and how to take Sami’s temperature at regular intervals. Mary was now determined to learn every nursing skill she could from the Missus. The Missus was as good as any doctor, Mary thought, and she boasted as much to all her friends.
Mary was not the only one impressed by Jane. Godfrey was lost in admiration and he told her so when he arrived a week later with the horse and buggy to take little Sami back to the island.
‘You realise if you hadn’t healed the child, you would have been in a shocking predicament,’ he said as he watched the boy, squealing and laughing, at play with Mary and Ronnie on the verandah.
‘I didn’t heal him, Godfrey,’ she smiled, ‘he’s a healthy little boy, his body healed itself, he just needed to be kept warm and dry.’
‘Nevertheless, it was a very courageous thing to do.’ She’d changed, he thought. That day on the island had changed her. He wondered if she knew it.
Jane did. She’d known it from the moment she’d recognised the trust in the woman’s eyes. And she’d sensed, from the moment she’d taken the care of the child upon herself, that her whole life had changed. She wasn’t quite sure how or why, but it was Godfrey who now put it into words.
‘You can serve a great purpose here, Jane. Not only with your nursing skills, but you have a way with these people. They trust you.’
‘Yes,’ she said. He was right. That was how she’d changed, and that was why. She now had a purpose.
That night she wrote to Phoebe. Throughout the voyage to the New Hebrides she’d sent regular telegraph messages from various ports of call assuring Phoebe of their safety, as she’d promised she would. But she’d also heeded her friend’s more frivolous instruction.
‘Don’t bother writing,’ Phoebe had said, ‘you’ll only make me feel guilty.’ Phoebe never wrote letters, she found it a bore. So, as yet, Jane had curbed the urge to write.
Tonight, however, was different. Godfrey’s words had had the deepest impact upon Jane, and she needed to tell Phoebe.
‘Forgive my correspondence,’ she wrote, ‘and don’t feel obliged to reply, but I have to let you know that you were right. “All things are meant for a purpose.” You have always said that, Phoebe, even when we were little more than children, and never more strongly than upon our parting, do you remember?’
Jane remembered. Her last meeting with Phoebe was indelibly etched in her mind. It had been in Fareham when she and Martin had travelled south for several days to say goodbye to her father and to introduce him to his new grandson before they sailed for the New Hebrides. They had motored down from Edinburgh in Martin’s father’s car, avoiding London and the chaos of rail travel.
It was strange to Jane, being back in the little mews cottage in Adelaide Place, a married woman with a husband and child. The girl she’d once been was everywhere, and yet that girl seemed a lifetime ago.
One thing remained constant, however: the intensity of her friendship with Phoebe. The first afternoon, they sat outside on the little bench by the vegetable garden. It was a clear autumn day, and Jane was rocking the baby in the wooden cradle her father had presented her with. ‘Made with my own two hands,’ Ron Miller had proudly announced.
‘Remember when I died and you brought me back to life?’ Jane asked.
‘Yes,’ Phoebe said, ‘of course I do.’
‘We sat right here that day.’
There was so much to remember, so much to talk about, and so little time left to them.
‘Soon you’ll be living on the other side of the world,’ Phoebe said with a touch of envy. ‘I always thought I’d be the first one to travel.’
‘So did I.’
Phoebe was teaching full time at Price’s school now. To the relief of both her parents she seemed to have developed a sense of responsibility since her return from Scotland.
‘Time I grew up,’ she admitted to Jane. ‘But I still intend to travel, and I’ll live in America, just like I said I would.’ It was the same rebellious Phoebe of old. ‘Right in the heart of Manhattan,’ she added, and Jane, as always, had no reason to doubt her.
They talked at length over the next several days, meeting in the afternoons when Phoebe was free of her young pupils. And then, all too soon, it was the morning of Jane’s departure.
They stood in West Street whilst Martin packed the luggage into the boot of the car and Ron Miller cuddled his namesake, pulling funny grandfather faces at the child.
‘Let me know you’re safe, whenever you can,’ Phoebe said. ‘But don’t bother writing, you’ll only make me feel guilty.’
‘I’ll miss you, Phoebe.’ Jane felt a stab of fear. Phoebe had inspired her spirit of adventure throughout their childhood, and Martin’s newfound calling had instilled in her the same sense of challenge. But she was suddenly unsure of herself. Without Phoebe’s influence, was she strong enough? Phoebe had always been the leader. ‘I’ll miss you so much.’
‘Don’t be silly, you won’t have the time,’ Phoebe laughed. ‘A husband and child and a whole new world? Heavens above, I envy you.’
They embraced, and Phoebe held her very tightly as she whispered in her ear. ‘All things are meant for a purpose, Jane, remember? And your purpose is just beginning.’
Martin returned to Vila the day after little Sami returned to the island.
‘Oh Marty, he’s the most adorable child,’ Jane said. ‘They all are. We’ll get Godfrey to take us to the island so that you can meet them. The whole village. They’re wonderful people.’
She was more excited than he’d ever seen her. And never before had he heard her speak with the passion she had as she’d recounted the story of Sami.
‘Well, you obviously didn’t miss me too much,’ he smiled.
Jane flushed. ‘Of course I did.’ How unwifely and inconsiderate she’d been to launch into an account of her own activities with barely a query about his work on Malekula. ‘You’ve been gone nearly a whole month, I missed you dreadfully. I’m sorry, it was selfish of me to talk about myself.’
‘To the contrary, I’m delighted.’ He was. ‘And you weren’t talking about yourself at all, Jane,’ he said. ‘You were talking about the people of these islands.’
He’d loved her from the moment he’d first seen her, his angel at the docks in Fareham, and he wouldn’t have thought it possible to love her any more. But, right at this moment, he did.
‘Oh my love, what work we can do, you and I,’ he said as he held her to him.
The week of Martin’s homecoming would be a busy one. There was a personal invitation from the British resident commissioner to a luncheon at his home on Iririki Island, the church committee was organising a fundraising fete, and Jane was planning her first dinner party. Just the storekeeper, Harry Bale, and his wife Hilary, and of course Godfrey, and she’d felt obliged to invite the Reverend Smeed. A casual dinner for six, she told herself, nothing to get in a panic about. But she wanted everything to go smoothly, it was important for Martin.
Then, two days later, the commissioner’s invitation, the fete, and Jane’s dinner party all paled into insignificance.
‘Yesterday, December 7, 1941 – a date which will live in infamy –’
The whole of Vila was tuned in to the Australian Broadcasting Commission’s Overseas Service as it relayed President Roosevelt’s address to Congress. Along with the rest of the world, they listened to the news that would change their lives.
‘– the United States was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan. Always will we remember the character of the onslaught against us. No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people, in their righteous might, will win through absolute victory.’
Pearl Harbor had been bombed and the Americans had joined the war. It would be only a matter of time before they arrived in the New Hebrides.
CHAPTER NINE
The Boeing 737 turned sharply in preparation for landing. Landing on Efate was always a delicate pr
ocedure; the approach to Bauerfield Airport was a tight one, as the pilots of Air Vanuatu knew only too well.
From her window seat, Sam could clearly see the island paradise below. The deep green forest, the crystal-clear ocean, and the white, white beaches. How breathtakingly pure the colours were, she thought. Unreal in their perfection. Like a picture postcard.
Unlike many of her countrymen, Sam had never visited the customary South Pacific haunts popular with Australian holiday-makers, and she was entranced.
She stepped off the plane to be instantly engulfed in a wave of heat. She’d experienced a similar sensation, briefly, during stopovers at Singapore and Bahrain airports en route to or from Europe. It was a different sort of heat from that of an Australian midsummer. All-embracing and suffocating, but at the same time sensual.
The terminal of Bauerfield International Airport was tiny and quaintly reminiscent of the fifties. As the passengers passed through customs and stepped out into the tropical glare of the day, they were met by a quartet of local musicians on box bass and guitars singing a song of welcome. Then several young islander women in colourful dresses with hibiscuses behind their ears greeted them and guided them to their respective transport.
So this is Vanuatu, Sam thought.
‘Great, isn’t it,’ a voice said, ‘and it’s only the airport – wait’ll you see the rest.’ Beside her, Nick Parslow dumped his suitcase on the ground.
‘I love it already,’ she said.
They were soon joined by the others, Simon Scanlon, Michael Robertson, Rodney the set designer, and members of the crew. Half the flight had been booked out by Mammoth Productions.
‘G’day, Rod,’ said a voice with an unmistakably Queensland twang, and a middle-aged man, dressed in shorts, a white short-sleeved shirt and shiny shoes with knee-high socks, shook Rodney’s hand. ‘G’day Simon, Nick,’ he said, shaking their hands also, ‘good to see you again.’