Sanctuary

by Judy Nunn

  About the Book

  On a barren island off the coast of Western Australia, a rickety wooden dinghy runs aground. Aboard are nine people who have no idea where they are. Strangers before the violent storm that tore their vessel apart, the instinct to survive has seen them bond during their days adrift on a vast and merciless ocean.

  Fate has cast them ashore with only one thing in common … fear. Rassen the doctor, Massoud the student, the child Hamid and the others all fear for their lives. But in their midst is Jalila, who appears to fear nothing. The beautiful young Yazidi woman is a mystery to them all.

  While they remain undiscovered on the deserted island, they dare to dream of a new life …

  But forty kilometres away on the mainland lies the tiny fishing port of Shoalhaven. Here everyone knows everyone, and every-one has their place. In Shoalhaven things never change. Until now …

  In Judy Nunn’s latest compelling novel, compassion meets bigotry, hatred meets love, and ultimately despair meets hope on the windswept shores of Australia.

  CONTENTS

  COVER

  ABOUT THE BOOK

  TITLE PAGE

  MAP

  DEDICATION

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  PART ONE: THE ISLAND

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  PART TWO: THE TOWN

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  PART THREE: THE JUDGEMENT

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  VIDEO: MESSAGE FROM JUDY NUNN

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ALSO BY JUDY NUNN

  COPYRIGHT NOTICE

  To the memory of Niall Lucy

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  All the characters in Sanctuary are fictional, as is the small fishing port and township of Shoalhaven on the coast of Western Australia. The name is not to be confused with the City of Shoalhaven in New South Wales.

  Gevaar Island is also fictional, although loosely based upon one of the many islands that make up the Houtman Abrolhos archipelago.

  PART ONE

  THE ISLAND

  CHAPTER ONE

  The island appeared out of nowhere. One minute they were relentlessly adrift in a rickety wooden dinghy with nothing in sight but the horrifying blue of the Indian Ocean, then the next they had run aground. On what? Land? A submerged reef? Both it seemed. A rocky barren island with low-lying shrubs, little more than a scrub-covered reef. Why hadn’t they seen it earlier? But then they’d seen virtually nothing for days as sky and sea had merged into one all-consuming blur. Even before the storm, which had wrecked their vessel and taken the lives of so many, they’d stopped looking for land. Their minds had been wandering in and out of consciousness for some time now, all nine of them, including the child, who was somehow still miraculously alive.

  They couldn’t tell how long they’d been adrift in the dinghy. Was it a day? A day and a night? Yes, there’d definitely been a night, a night of unbearable cold that had cut through their drenched clothes and their bones to the very marrow of their being. Was it two days? Perhaps three? They didn’t know, and in their state of exhaustion were beyond caring. Even Rassen, the doctor who had taken on the role of leader and in whom the survivors had placed their trust, even Rassen had resigned himself to the inevitability of his death. He, too, had stopped looking out for land. Like the others, he’d stopped trying to even guess in which direction it might lie. And now there it was right before his very eyes.

  The dinghy lurched drunkenly to one side and settled itself in the rocky shallows, as if like its occupants in a state of exhaustion and nearing the end of its life, which indeed it was.

  No one made a move. Several of the survivors remained in a semi-conscious condition and were unaware of the extraordinary event that had taken place, while others stared dumbly, uncomprehendingly, their minds unable to absorb what they saw.

  Rassen squinted through the morning’s wintry glare, hardly daring to believe he could be right, for the light of the sun reflecting off the water’s surface played tricks with a person’s mind. Is this a mirage? he wondered. Surely my eyes deceive me. There are huts on this island. There are huts and there are jetties projecting into the sea. Where there are huts and jetties there are people. We are saved.

  ‘We are saved,’ he heard himself croak in a voice that wasn’t his, a voice parched and by now so unused as to seem quite foreign. He addressed the words to his wife, Hala, who sat beside him, also unable to believe the vision before her.

  ‘We are saved,’ he repeated, but this time to the survivors in general and this time in a voice that, although weakened, held an edge of authority. Someone must lead them. His tone proved effective, bringing the others to their senses, rousing them from the lethargy of their surrender. ‘Massoud,’ he said to the young Iranian who throughout the ordeal had become his second-in-command, ‘help me get everyone ashore. We must find water.’

  Both men struggled to their feet, unsteady on limbs unaccustomed to action.

  In stepping out of the dinghy, Massoud misjudged the water’s depth, which was well above knee-height, and fell clumsily face-first into the sea. His immersion had an instantaneous effect. Suddenly he was revitalised, alert with a giddy form of madness, although he had the distinct feeling his elation was due not so much to a dunking, but rather the knowledge he was not going to die after all. Not yet anyway. As he stood, he let out a strange bark, which in actual fact was a laugh.

  ‘All ashore everyone,’ he said, beckoning emphatically for the benefit of those amongst them who did not speak English. He didn’t know why he chose to address them in English at all, perhaps simply because the doctor had.

  Rassen lowered himself carefully into the water, then assisted Hala, taking her full weight as he lifted her over the side of the dinghy.

  ‘I can manage,’ she said firmly when she was standing beside him, although she felt she might fall at any moment. ‘Help the others.’

  ‘Give me the child,’ Rassen said in Arabic, and held his arms out to the young father.

  The father passed the unconscious infant to him before alighting from the dinghy himself and tending to his wife. She, too, was barely conscious and moaned as she was lifted by her husband and cradled in his arms.

  The other couple, Egyptians, a man and woman in their early forties, managed to climb out unassisted, albeit shakily. Then the man turned back to offer his hand to the girl. But she appeared not to notice the gesture, making no acknowledgement as she wordlessly slid her body over the dinghy’s side, an action that even in her weakened condition was graceful.

  The girl, whom they presumed to be around nineteen years of age, was a mystery to them all. She never spoke, but they knew she was not a mute for they had witnessed the occasional whispered response to her companion in the early days of their journey, before the storm and the capsizing of the vessel, when hopes were still high. Perhaps it had been her companion’s gruesome death that had rendered her ongoing silence. At least that’s what Rassen had first thought, but he’d come to doubt it, recalling how, even as she’d watched the man’s blood swirl in the water, even as she’d heard his screams and witnessed the ferocity of the shark’s attack, her reaction had been minimal: little more than resignation. The girl remained the same mystery to them all that she had bee
n from the very outset. Her innate grace matched a beauty that was flawless, even now, sun-damaged and exhausted as she was. Eyes constantly downcast, she seemed unaware not only of herself, but of everything around her, as if she had removed herself to another place altogether. The others, who had bonded in the interest of survival, did not even know her name.

  When everyone had alighted, they made their way slowly and gingerly across the twenty or so metres of rocky shallows to the shore, the young father carrying his wife, Rassen the child, and Massoud pulling behind him the dinghy, which minus its human cargo was now afloat.

  Beneath bare feet, the feel of rough coral sand brought overwhelming relief, and those with footwear pulled off their sandals and shoes, relishing the sensation. Some offered prayers in the form of wordless thoughts giving thanks to their God, while some muttered through parched lips.

  Massoud secured the dinghy’s anchor in the rocks of the shoreline while Rassen led the way to the nearest hut, which, like its neighbours, was crudely constructed of corrugated iron attached to a timber frame. The hut was incongruously painted bright yellow and its tin roof, supported by roughly hewn wooden pillars, extended over a verandah floored with paving stones, a timber bench beside the front door completing an effect that, although ramshackle, was homely.

  The young father, whose name was Karim, settled his wife gently on the bench. She had fully regained consciousness, but once again moaned, putting a hand to her ribs, the movement obviously causing her pain.

  ‘We are safe, Azra,’ Karim whispered in Hazaragi, the Persian dialect of his people. He knelt beside her. ‘We are safe,’ he repeated. Karim did not know if they were safe at all, but for the moment they were free of the relentless ocean and of the sharks and of all the other terrors he knew beset her. Given her intense fear of the sea, Azra had been terrified from the moment they had stepped aboard the vessel. He had deeply admired the strength she had displayed in undertaking such a journey.

  Rassen passed the infant to Hala.

  ‘Tend to the child,’ he said, although they both knew there was little to be done. The child, a boy of barely three, was now conscious, his eyelids flickering open, his small chest rising with each shallow hard-won breath, but he was close to death. It was really only a matter of time.

  Rassen knocked on the front door of the hut. There was no answer. Another knock, with a little more force this time: still no answer. Then he tried the handle and the door swung open to reveal an empty room.

  ‘Hello?’ he called. He peered into a roughly furnished living room with shelves and pots and pans to one side, but, through another open door that led to the rear of the hut, he could make out no activity. The place was clearly deserted. He stepped back, closing the door behind him.

  ‘Do what you can for the others,’ he instructed Hala, aware that if anyone could help ease their fear and uncertainty it was his wife. Hala was an experienced and highly competent nurse and, like many of her kind, had a way of instilling confidence during times of crisis. ‘Massoud and I will make ourselves known to the island’s inhabitants,’ he said, although gazing about Rassen had the strangest feeling that something was wrong. Where were the inhabitants? Why had they not shown themselves?

  Surely our arrival cannot have gone unnoticed, he thought. It is mid-morning – surely someone must have seen us. Do they fear our presence? Will they prove friend or foe? Perhaps they are in hiding, or perhaps at this very moment they are preparing to attack.

  Then, scanning the line of huts for any sign of life, his eyes hit upon the most welcome of sights. A water tank. In fact more than one water tank. At least they had to be water tanks, his confused and exhausted mind told him, they simply had to be.

  Beside several of the huts stood large round tanks with a height at rooftop and guttering level, presumably for drainage. They could be nothing other than a water supply, Rassen thought. He could even make out a tap on the side of the nearest one.

  Rassen was not alone in noticing the tanks. Massoud, too, had seen them. And so had Hany, the Egyptian. Glances were exchanged between the three men and they set off with purpose, the renewed will to survive having lent them fresh strength, each praying desperately the tanks were not dry.

  Behind them, Hala, obeying her husband’s instruction, did the best she could to comfort the others, although without Rassen’s medical kit and supplies, which had been lost along with everything else during the storm, there was little practical assistance she could offer.

  ‘Hold little Hamid for me, will you please?’ She could have passed the infant to his father, or to Hany’s wife, the Egyptian woman, Sanaa, who appeared to have strength enough left to assist, but she deliberately chose the girl. Time to break through the barriers, she thought. ‘I need to examine Azra,’ she said when the girl hesitated. ‘Azra is in pain and needs attention. Please take the child.’ Hala spoke Arabic, the language in which they could all communicate, albeit in varying dialects, and in the case of Azra and Karim only to a limited degree. Her general manner and her tone were pleasant enough, but her request was really more a command.

  The girl obeyed, taking the little boy in her arms, and Hala sat on the bench beside Azra. She opened the young woman’s rough woollen coat and, pulling back her own shoulder-length hair, now stiff and matted with salt, leant down to press her ear against Azra’s chest. Without a stethoscope her ear would have to do, although she was confident she knew what the problem was. Azra had suffered rib damage during the storm and ensuing capsize. To what extent Hala could not be certain, but she was quite sure a broken rib had not punctured the lungs. If it had, by now the woman would no doubt be dead.

  ‘Breathe in,’ she said, and Azra obeyed, wincing as she did. ‘Yes, I know,’ Hala said sympathetically, ‘it is painful to breathe deeply, yes?’

  Azra nodded.

  ‘And painful to cough also, am I right?’ she asked, raising her head. During the past days she’d noticed the young woman holding her ribs and stemming a desire to cough.

  Again Azra nodded.

  ‘But if you feel the need to cough, do not stop yourself,’ Hala said firmly. ‘If you were to do so, it might invite a chest infection. And we would not want that, would we?’ She spoke slowly, aware Azra’s knowledge of Arabic was limited, but she’d apparently made her meaning quite clear.

  ‘No,’ Azra shook her head obediently, ‘no, we would not.’

  Azra would do whatever was asked of her for Nurse Hala had been sent by the angels, the messengers of God. Before the terrible storm, when the sickness had spread about the boat, they had all benefitted from the ministrations of Nurse Hala. She had saved little Hamid’s life. At that time Azra had even thought that perhaps Nurse Hala herself was an angel, sent by Allah to cure their illnesses, as angels were bounden to do. And Nurse Hala’s appearance, so different from them all with her fair hair and fair skin and her motherly English-looking face, might well have been that of an angel. Everyone knew that angels came in many guises. Azra recognised now that Nurse Hala was merely a woman, but one of such strength and goodness that it was surely true she had been sent by the angels.

  ‘Do not be alarmed now, Azra, I am going to examine you.’

  Hala lifted the young woman’s blouse, enough to expose the ribcage, but not the breasts, aware that modesty was of paramount importance to a woman of Azra’s devout faith. She examined the midsection with care – some bruising, but all appeared to be in order – then cupping the lower ribs of each side in her hands she gave a slight squeeze.

  Azra cried out involuntarily.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Hala said, ‘I know I hurt you, but it was necessary.’ Good, she thought. Things were just as she’d expected – there was elasticity in the ribs and the damage was fractures only, which would heal in time. ‘There is no need for concern, Karim,’ she added, having noted the husband’s consternation at his wife’s cry of pain. ‘Azra has a fractured rib, perhaps two, I can’t be sure, and they are painful, certainly …’ she looked b
ack at Azra and smiled ‘… but they will mend. Azra may be small,’ she added encouragingly, ‘but she is strong.’

  Hala spoke as a mother might to a child. The young woman, in her early twenties, petite, pretty, hijab framing a doll-like face, was so disarmingly ingenuous it was difficult not to view her as a child.

  They were child-like the pair of them, she thought as she stood and gestured for the bearded young man with the earnest eyes to sit beside his wife. They were a devoutly religious and simple young peasant couple, obviously very much in love, and she wondered what had driven them to take the drastic course of action they had. She wondered also how they would react to the death of their infant son. It was evident they did not realise the seriousness of little Hamid’s condition.

  While Karim sat on the bench, his arm comfortingly around his wife, Hala turned her attention to the girl, so unfathomable to them all. The Egyptian woman, Sanaa, was seated on the paving stones leaning against one of the wooden pillars, eyes trained on the men in the distance, which gave Hala ample opportunity to study the girl unobserved.

  It appeared, for the very first time, that she might be showing something approaching a glimmer of interest as she looked down at the child in her arms. She was displaying no emotion certainly, but Hala noted she had drawn the end of the light shawl, which was draped over her head as it always was, about the child. Such a gesture was surely evidence of compassion.

  Hala indicated they should move away from the bench and the child’s parents, and the girl allowed herself to be led from the verandah around to the shaded side of the hut, where they stood in silence for a moment or so, the girl’s eyes still focused upon the child.