The Diamond Dakota Mystery

by Juliet Wills

  shackles, blackbirders would round up healthy young Aborigines, enslaving them to work on cattle stations or pearling boats, and beating into submission anyone who protested. The captive men, women and children were forced to take on the dangerous task of diving and shelling. Those who clung to the side of the ships for too long had their fingers hit with an oar to set them off again. Challenging authority would be met with whips and chains. The use of women and children as divers was banned after a complaint from the Catholic Bishop of Perth, Matthew Gibney (who later took Ned Kelly’s confession and performed the last rites), which resulted in the passing of the Pearl Shell Fishery Regulation Act of 1875. It was Bishop Gibney’s concern for the safety of Aboriginal people that lead him to invite the Trappists to set up a mission at Beagle Bay.

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  As the shallower pearling fields were depleted, the Aborigines refused to don the claustrophobic vulcanised canvas suits, massive bronze helmets and lead-weighted boots required for deep-sea diving and were largely replaced by Japanese divers after the turn of the century. The Japanese divers would spend hours underwater, often almost horizontal as they peered into murky waters through inch-thick face plates, frantically placing oysters and pearl shell into their collecting bags.

  While the master pearlers made their bread and butter from pearl shell, they always dreamt of finding that pearl of pearls.

  Such was the allure of the pearl that men risked their lives in the hope of finding them, and a bustling trade in ‘snide’ or stolen pearls emerged in the frontier town.

  When the Mulgrues arrived in Broome in 1921, the town was a straggling mile of wood and corrugated-iron shops, with sharp racial and social divisions among the inhabitants. The pearling crews worked hard and played hard. Chinatown’s Sheba Lane offered a bustling array of favourite pastimes, including drinking, fighting, gambling and prostitution. Even with endless acres to build on, the Asians preferred crowded quarters with their own kind to the stand-offish reticence of the scattered bungalows of the European master pearlers.

  Money was good in the early days, and Mulgrue and his

  family enjoyed the life of master pearlers, living in a wood and iron bungalow on stilts, surrounded by a broad latticed verandah

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  and shaded by flame-red poinciana trees, frangipanis and palms.

  The roads that linked the bungalows of the master pearlers, maintained by gangs of Aboriginal convicts, shimmered white from the grit of pearl shells. Malay and Aboriginal servants tended to their needs, ensuring ‘Captain Mulgrue’ had clean and pressed white safari suits. Lilian ordered her dresses from London and busied herself at the local church.

  The heady profits of the early days were already gone when Jim Mulgrue got in on the action, but there was still money to be made. For three years he enjoyed the good life, but by the mid-twenties the signs of the impending Depression were already visible, and the market for pearl shell began to bottom.

  While the Depression did not hit as hard in Broome as in some parts of Australia, most of the lugger masters could not afford the fuel for the air compressors for the divers, and reverted to hand-turned pumps. The bungalows of the master pearlers were left empty and the Asiatic quarter began to fall down.

  James Mulgrue and his crew were still pulling in pearl shell, but London was not paying a good price for it. Mulgrue struggled to put food on the table—meals were often bread and dripping—

  and he lost two of his luggers to his creditors. Added to this, he began consorting with other women and Lilian left him.

  Jim Mulgrue managed to hold on to the lugger Dragon, but the shell price never recovered despite new and rich pearling fields being discovered. The Dragon was at sea when a devastating cyclone decimated the pearling fleet in 1935. One hundred and forty-two men died, and twenty of the thirty-six luggers

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  based in Broome were lost. The Dragon and Skipper Mulgrue survived, but the vessel was extensively damaged. The Dragon was repaired and Skipper continued pearling, but the market did not improve—more than a hundred Japanese vessels began working the northern waters, flooding the market and driving the price of pearl shell down further. Mulgrue joined the clamour of European pearlers demanding action, and in 1935 the

  Commonwealth agreed to help subsidise the industry. As the market tumbled, some lugger captains sold their boats to the Japanese illegally, a process called dummying. In 1938, James Mulgrue retired from pearling, aged sixty-two. Pearling had failed to fund his retirement, and to fill in the extra hours he took up work at Dysons store and sold chickens to the local butcher. With a regular salary, he was not quite so subject to the vagaries of the economy, the wind and the weather.

  Broome was his home, where as a former master pearler he

  still commanded some respect, where the old-timers could talk of the hardships, snide pearls and vast profits of the old days, and where the locals all knew him by name.

  The Continental Hotel was normally one of the liveliest spots in town, where men from the sea drank, gambled, shouted and sang, spinning yarns about their adventures, dirty deals, murder, ghosts, cyclones, dangerous sea creatures, lost sons, the old days when the money was really good and, of course, the pearl of pearls. Here Mulgrue spun rich stories, engaging people with

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  the crinkle of his eye and his smooth educated accent. Here, too, with the flicker of an eye or the lift of a finger, men with an illicit pearl tucked in their matchboxes gave the signal to a snide buyer willing to give hundreds in cash for a pearl worth thousands in London or Paris. But the mood in the bar after the air raid was sombre and melancholy.

  ‘Bloody Japs!’ Mulgrue quipped to a soldier at the bar. ‘Not content to take all our pearl shell, now they want the bloody country!’

  ‘You were in the pearl industry?’ the soldier asked, and

  Skipper nodded. ‘Ever find a big one?’ the soldier continued.

  ‘I’ve found a few,’ Skipper replied, ‘but it isn’t pearls that have kept this town going. Shirt buttons that won’t crumble in the wash have brought more money to Broome than all the pearls in the Sultan of Baroda’s famous pearl shawl.’ He

  remembered the tales of the phenomenal treasures held by the Indian Sultan from his time in India. The Gaekwar of Baroda was reputed to own a pearl rug that was three metres long and almost two metres wide, with some diamonds woven in for

  good measure. ‘Pearl shell, not pearls, keeps the industry going and always has done.’

  Crippled Canadian motor mechanic Frank ‘Robbie’ Robinson

  sat on a bar stool sipping on his beer, which he held with a twisted arthritic hand, listening to the conversation. Robinson had owned a motor garage in Broome for the last eighteen

  months, but the military had taken it over in the weeks leading up to the air raid. He too had helped the survivors to the

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  hospital and the airport after the attack. Born in Canada, he was not the type to settle in one place. He was another drifter, having worked in ports around Australia and the world, and Broome was full of drifters. He had set up his business after leaving Cockatoo Island—an iron ore mine off the coast north of Broome, where he had worked for BHP as a diesel electric engineer—when arthritis had got the better of him. Now his leg was so twisted and gnarled he could barely walk.

  ‘What are you going to do now?’ the soldier asked Mulgrue.

  ‘Couldn’t stand going down south,’ Mulgrue replied. ‘All

  that cold weather and the people, they’re differ
ent in the cities.’

  Robinson chipped in, ‘Colonel Legg reckons everyone should get out. Says the Japs could land any day.’

  The soldier nodded. ‘I don’t have any choice, I go where

  I’m sent, but if I were you, I wouldn’t be sticking around.’

  ‘Where would I go?’ Mulgrue replied.

  ‘I’ve got a chance to take Mr Kennedy’s lugger away from

  Broome for him,’ Robbie told Mulgrue. ‘I could do with an experienced sailor like you.’ Bert Kennedy, known around

  Broome as ‘H.K. Unsinkable’, owned seven luggers, a schooner, a store and the state shipping agency. He feared his fleet might be decimated in another Japanese attack and wanted to get the boats out. Robbie was one of the few left in town who knew anything about sailing. It often amazed people how a man as disabled as Robbie could work his way around a boat, but he couldn’t sail it alone.

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  ‘He isn’t interested in where we go but would like me to

  take it south, somewhere out of harm’s way,’ Robbie continued.

  He looked at the Englishman, who appeared old and tired and didn’t seem much interested in going anywhere. He was a decent bloke, Skipper, and even in his sixties he was still able to pull the ladies in. If he had to hang out on a boat for a few months, Skipper was one of the few blokes he wouldn’t mind spending time with, and he’d heard the older man had been a good

  captain in his day. ‘Personally, I don’t want to go south—it’s too cold for my crippled leg and arthritic hands—but Kennedy said south,’ Robbie explained, adding, ‘It’s the Aumeric and it’s motorised.’

  ‘I’m not going south,’ Mulgrue told Robbie.

  Robbie was eager to get out of town and needed Skipper’s

  boating skills. ‘We can take it north. North’s good,’ he explained.

  Mulgrue told him he was prepared to stay in Broome and

  face the consequences, but he’d think about his offer.

  Over the next few days, the town became increasingly deserted, and the handful of residents who remained were anxious. Stocks were low, communications were down and there wasn’t even a doctor in town. Everyone feared the Japanese were about to land.

  Mulgrue made up his mind to accept Robbie’s offer to take the Aumeric north, providing they could sort out money for stores and agree on a destination.

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  Robbie was pleased that such an experienced boathand as

  Skipper Mulgrue would accompany him on his way north.

  They discussed locations along the coast that would provide fresh water and good campgrounds for sitting out the war. They agreed on Cape Leveque, as the lighthouse keeper had a pedal radio which would enable them to get news of the war. The more they talked, the more excited they became about the idea.

  Mulgrue collected the wages owed to him by Dysons to

  fund supplies and petrol for the trip. Now that he had made up his mind to go, he was relieved they would soon be on their way. After stocking up with eight months’ worth of stores and selling off the goats and chickens, they were ready to set sail when the tide allowed.

  Two weeks after the air raid, on 18 March, the crippled

  mechanic and the pensioner sailed on the midday tide on the B45 lugger Aumeric with two Aboriginal crewmen. The Dampier Peninsula was lined with creeks and little bays ideal for hiding a lugger. Heading north as they had planned, they were armed with three rifles and a machine gun in case of trouble. The weather was hot and still, with ominous storm clouds looming overhead. As the tides receded, rocks and reefs raised their ugly and potentially devastating heads. It was the tides that determined every move of the sailor and his craft, and many a boat had come to grief on the shoreline for failing to respect the tides. They left on the neap tide, but poor winds made the going slow.

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  They sailed past the wreckage of Smirnoff ’s Dakota at Carnot Bay, the site of so much tragedy, but did not go near it. A week after the raid, news of the rescue of survivors from the Dakota had spread through the town like wildfire. Robbie had travelled with a friend to greet them but had been bogged. Mulgrue had stayed in town as he had to mind the store. When they brought the first lot in, Mulgrue had sold a singlet that was miles too big to a young, skinny pilot with an injured leg. The pilot had given him Dutch East Indies currency, which wasn’t much good, but it was more than the survivors from the raid in Broome had been able to offer.

  The coastline near the crash site was exposed and the waters filled with sharks. The tide was going out and they did not want to get stuck at Carnot Bay, where there was no ready supply of fresh water near the shore. The devastation in Broome was still fresh in their minds as they travelled north. Their intention was to get as far away as possible from the war and all its casualties, and the bullet-ridden Dakota was a reminder of the time in which they lived.

  The lugger passed a stark red bluff that protruded from the coast; at the base, the vivid rouge sand from the bluff cut a line across the white sand which led down to the sea. A billowing cumulus cloud crept across the sun, throwing out beams of light at odd angles. Moving northwards past rolling dunes, they rounded Sandy Point, entering the broad expanse of Beagle Bay in the afternoon as the sky blackened and winds whipped up the ocean. The Aumeric heeled and rolled through the rising

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  stormcaps which threatened to swamp the boat. The mainsail and mizzen were lowered for fear of damage. They headed

  towards Normans Creek, where the sand had been whipped up into a frenzy. The wind eased, lightning cracked and thunder roared above, and then driving rain fell. Drenched through, they sought shelter below deck.

  Normans Creek provided refuge from the storm. When the

  rain subsided they decided to move on into the Beagle Bay settlement to access the freshwater wells there.

  Warrant Officer Gus Clinch had returned to the crash site at Carnot Bay with Brother Richard five days after they rescued the survivors of the crash. On arrival, he had reburied the bodies of Daan Hendriksz, Joop Blaauw, Maria van Tuyn and Jo van Tuyn. He had searched the interior of the plane for the missing package, but found nothing.

  On 29 March he received orders from his superior, Major

  Gibson, to return to Carnot Bay and retrieve a radio set and to again search for the package. He heard Mulgrue and Robinson had moored their pearling lugger at the creek and headed down, hoping to hitch a ride south.

  Jim Mulgrue’s eyes were bandaged but he heard Clinch

  approach.

  ‘Who’s that?’ he shouted.

  ‘It’s just me, Gus,’ Clinch replied. Robinson turned and

  waved, and Clinch sat down to join them.

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  ‘You blokes are lucky you got out of Broome when you did.’

  ‘What’s happened now?’ Robinson replied, alarmed.

  ‘The Japs have been back. Bombed the town this time,’

  Clinch advised.

  A ‘V’ formation of seven Japanese bombers had flown over

  Broome on 20 March, releasing about forty bombs. They targeted runways, wireless equipment, petrol dumps and other buildings at the aerodrome but luckily most of the bombs missed their targets. The raid claimed one life, that of a Malay, Abdul Hame Bin Juden.

  ‘Anyone left in town?’

  ‘A handful of soldiers, a couple of old-timers,’ Clinch

  explained.

  Mulgrue lifted his bandage, revealing red, watery and swollen eyes, but he couldn’t bear the sunlight and c
overed them again.

  ‘What’s up with your eyes?’ Clinch asked.

  ‘Sandy blight,’ Mulgrue explained. ‘Caught it in a sandstorm.’

  (Sandy blight is, in fact, trachoma, a chronic bacterial eye infection which can lead to blindness.)

  ‘Which way are you blokes heading?’ Clinch inquired.

  ‘We thought we’d hang out here for a bit, then maybe go

  up to Cape Leveque,’ Robinson replied.

  ‘Did you pass the Dutch plane?’ Clinch asked.

  ‘The DC-3?’ Robinson asked, and Clinch nodded. ‘Is that

  the plane the Japs shot down a couple of weeks ago?’ Robinson wanted to know.

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  ‘I helped rescue those blokes. They were a real mess. Could barely walk,’ Clinch said.

  ‘They brought those blokes back to Broome but I didn’t see them. You did, though, didn’t you Jim?’

  Mulgrue was not in the mood for conversation. His eyes

  were driving him mad. ‘I served one of them at the store,’ he said abruptly.

  But Robinson was glad for the company and asked Clinch

  to recount the tale of the rescue of the Dutchmen.

  The soldier obliged, finishing by saying: ‘I have orders from Major Gibson to go back out to the plane. I was hoping I

  could hitch a ride on your lugger?’

  Robinson looked to Mulgrue, who squinted beneath the

  bandage. ‘Even if I could bloody see, the tides aren’t right. The boat’s neaped [run aground on the very low tide] and we’re not expecting another good tide for days.’

  ‘Between you and me, and it’s not to go any further, it’s not just a radio set I have to search for,’ Clinch explained, hoping to sway the old man. ‘That plane had a fortune in diamonds on board and I’ve been asked to fetch them.’

  Robinson’s eyes lit up, but Mulgrue calmly repeated, ‘Can’t help you. The boat’s neaped and I can’t see.’

  Clinch wasn’t sure whether it was the boat that wouldn’t