‘I told you, they only come out at night. When everyone’s asleep. Easier to get fresh meat that way,’ Jake said, biting into an apple as the others hid their grins.
‘No way to run a war,’ Nige muttered, putting his glasses back on and peering at the branches above him. Cliffy had warned city-raised Nige only too well about the vicious cousin of the koala, the drop bear, which hunted men by dropping from the trees, clawing at their faces with sharp, deadly claws. The only thing Nigel Rollings didn’t know about drop bears was that they were entirely fictitious.
‘Anyway, as I was saying,’ Cliffy said, ‘soon as we find Mick, I reckon we go back up along the beach and –’
Another cone arrived, smack on Nige’s nose, and he jumped up, grabbing his gun.
‘Who goes there?’
The others looked at him in amusement, only to jump up themselves at the sound of approach.
‘’Tis I, Sir Michael of Braidwood.’ Michael laughed, emerging from the scrub. ‘And I come bearing gifts.’ He shoved the two captured soldiers forwards, now gagged and with their hands on their heads. The squad all looked relieved to see him and more than a little impressed with his ‘gifts’.
‘Mick, you sneaky bastard!’
‘Where’d you go?’
‘Had to wait for these two galahs to finish their smoko before I could persuade them to join us,’ he told them. ‘Do the honours for me, will you, Cliffy?’
‘I’d be delighted, Sir Mick,’ Cliffy said, jumping up. ‘Give us a hand, Tommy. Plan K, is it?’
‘I think that might work for these two,’ Michael said.
There was a distinctly uncomfortable look in the prisoners’ eyes as Cliffy and Tommy tied the two men between some trees, arms stretched to the sides, leaving front and back exposed.
‘Might be time to hear their lovely voices. What do y’reckon, Mick?’
‘Be my guest, Cliffy,’ he said, sitting down and taking a long drink from his canteen. ‘Ah, thirsty work, that.’
The two men stared at the water longingly as Cliffy ungagged them.
‘It’s –’ one began, then coughed a little. ‘It’s in the rules you have to give us water.’
Jake smiled at him, peeling another apple with a long knife. ‘Don’t really care for rules much in Red Group. Get in the way of having a bit of fun.’
‘Oh, come on now, Jake,’ said Cliffy. ‘This one looks as dry as a dead dingo’s donger.’
‘A dead dingo’s donger,’ Nige repeated, chuckling. ‘Now I’ve heard everything.’
‘Country lads,’ Wally said.
‘Never know what we might say.’ Cliffy came up close to one of the soldiers. ‘Never know what we might do neither. What’s your name, mate? That’s in the rules ain’t it? Have to tell us your name and rank.’
‘O’Connell. Private Jason O’Connell,’ he said, holding his chin out with bravado.
‘Jason O’Connell, eh? JOC. I bet they call you Jocco, do they?’
‘My mates do, yes.’
‘Ah, well we could be mates. Couldn’t we, fellas?’
The rest of Red Group nodded.
‘Sure,’ said Jake. ‘Good mates.’ He was cleaning his knife and pointed at the unlit fire. ‘Light that up for me will ya, Wally?’
‘No – no fires. Sarge said,’ stammered the second soldier.
‘Hello, who do we have here?’ asked Cliffy.
‘Smith. Private…Kevin Smith.’ This one didn’t even try to look brave. He was too busy staring at the fire that was beginning to crackle. Wally threw some sticks on it and gave it a fan.
‘Ah, Smitty is your handle, I reckon, yeah?’
The private nodded, eyes wide.
‘What’s a little fire among mates, eh, Smitty? Keeps things all cosy like.’
Jake stood up and walked over to the flames. ‘Nice work, Wally.’ The two prisoners watched in growing fear as Jake crouched down next to it and placed his knife at the base of the coals.
‘What – what is he doing?’ asked Smitty. There were beads of sweat on his forehead now and Michael felt a bit sorry for him. Or he would do, if he didn’t know what was about to happen next.
He bit his lip to stop himself from smiling and took out a cigarette instead.
‘Never mind about Jake. Just likes to play with knives and fires from time to time,’ said Cliffy as he came close to the prisoners once more. ‘He doesn’t really like secrets, though. None of us in Red Group do. You’ve got a secret, haven’t ya, boys?’
‘We gave you our name and rank,’ said Smitty.
‘Yes, but you see, we don’t really care about that much. We just want to know that little word of yours.’
Jake pulled the knife out of the fire and examined it before replacing it and adding more wood.
‘What’s the code, lads?’ Michael said, breaking his silence. ‘You’ll never get out of here any other way.’
‘Vouloir, c’est pouvoir,’ Jocco announced defiantly.
‘Bloody hell,’ Cliffy said in surprise.
‘I think he just asked to call his mum,’ guessed Tommy, as the others laughed.
‘What’s your mate saying there, Smitty?’
‘It’s – it’s French. It means “Where there’s a will, there’s a way.” He likes to speak it. From time to time.’
‘Very nice to have an educated man in our midst but I’m afraid it won’t impress this lot,’ Michael told them. ‘Come on, make it easy on yourselves and we can all sit down and have some nice cold water.’
‘Can’t be too cold if you’ve kept it out here,’ said Jocco.
Cliffy chuckled. ‘Ah, very true, Jocco. Very true. It’s hot today, ain’t it?’
Jake took the knife out again and wandered close. ‘Very bloody hot,’ he agreed, grinning.
‘What’s the code word?’ Cliffy said, right in Jocco’s face now.
‘I’ll never tell.’
‘You’ll tell me, won’t you, Smitty? You’ll tell me that code word and then we can all relax.’
Smitty looked set to faint.
‘He doesn’t know it,’ blurted Jocco. ‘Leave him alone.’
Michael was impressed with that. Loyalty wouldn’t be too easy for any man right about now.
‘Well, that just leaves you then, doesn’t it?’ Jake said. ‘Drop his trousers, boys.’
‘What?’ Jocco yelped. ‘You can’t be serious! You…you – hey!’ Wally and Nige dropped the man’s pants and Jake held the hot knife close to his face.
‘Last chance.’
‘I said I’ll never tell!’
Jake walked around behind him, knife raised.
‘Tell us the code word!’ yelled Cliffy.
‘No!’ cried Jocco, eyes squeezed shut.
Jake dropped the knife to the ground and took out a spare one from his belt and in one swift action lay the cool blade on Jocco’s backside.
‘Mayflower!’
It was some time before Jocco stopped shaking but he eventually did, after some water and ciggies and quite a few back slaps and apologies.
Two things changed for Private Jason O’Connell that day. He won the respect of other members of the Elite for his loyalty to his mate Smitty, but he lost his nickname Jocco. From that day forward he was only ever referred to as Mayflower.
Fourteen
February 1942
Lower North Shore, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Junie lifted her hair away from her neck and patted Digger, who had fallen asleep in her lap, his tired puppy face resting between his paws, his snores soft from his velvety black snout. He’d been very good on the car ride from Braidwood and Junie was glad – Ernest barely tolerated him and Digger seemed to watch her fiancé with a kind of wariness, shrinking under Junie’s chair whenever he showed up. The pup had slept in his basket in the car and entertained himself by chewing on one of her father’s socks, his favourite activity. In fact, by the time they’d left, Henry had claimed he needed Digger out of the house or he�
�d have to start going about the place barefoot. Despite his protestations, Junie knew he hated to see her puppy go. Digger had found a way to comfort them all somehow and she knew both her parents would miss him.
She was sitting on the porch of her new home, or home-to-be, a half-read book about the history of Sydney on the chair next to her. Living with Constance and the twins while Ernest stayed in officers’ quarters on the headland was, of course, extremely uncomfortable. She felt more like an inconvenient servant than a future part of the family, let alone the lady of the house. The only reprieve would come in the form of Ernest moving in when they were married and his mother and sisters moving out, a dismal prospect that weighed on her with increasingly leaden inevitability each day.
Constance, on the other hand, seemed to be enjoying a holiday away from the Colonel, who far preferred country life. She’d taken to the task of creating Ernest’s Sydney abode with relish, despite her continued disapproval of his bride.
‘Yellow just won’t do at all,’ Junie heard her voice carry from the parlour. ‘I want something that is subtle enough that it doesn’t offend the eye, yet bright enough to feel fresh and modern. What have you got in orange?’
‘Something quite ravishing,’ the decorator said, ‘mandarin!’
‘Oh, I could simply eat it up!’ gushed Constance. ‘And we could plant fruit trees outside the windows.’
‘Inspired suggestion, madam. You really do have exquisite taste.’
‘Well, one tries to help where one can. Now, what on earth shall we do about this ghastly wallpaper?’
Yes, her mother-in-law was the true mistress of this house, and Junie doubted she would ever feel it was otherwise.
It sat elevated on Cowles Road in Mosman, near enough to buses and shops but without water views, as Ernest had said. Junie supposed if she could live here with Michael and decorate it herself, she would probably love it. It was classic Federation style with stained glass in the windows, moulded ceilings and tiled fireplaces in most rooms and polished floorboards throughout. A sandstone fence ran along the front and it was lined by neatly pruned rose bushes and camellias which extended down the sides and around to this shaded verandah out back.
Nothing could change the fact that she now lived in a crammed city but she was saved from feeling confined by the proximal location of the ferry, not to mention Balmoral Beach and the harbour foreshores. The country girl in Junie was able to shake off the constraints of suburban life down there and stand beneath open vistas and the wide expanse of sky. Best of all, she could visit the great lady once more who listened to the secrets of her heart in quiet reception. Even the presence of warships, planes and soldiers couldn’t detract from the harbour’s calming beauty. It was as if the lady was protecting them all as she hugged Sydney’s shores and carried the converted ferries, now equipped with guns. This was her parlour, her domain, and she threw her claim at the headlands in crashing deterrent as they stood guard at the gates to this: the reputed safest harbour in the world.
Junie’s thoughts drifted to Michael, here somewhere too and training hard. The Riley girls had sent word a few times from their new home in Hurstville to the city’s south, all settled in now with their mum and working shifts at St Margaret’s Hospital in Darling-hurst. Apparently Rory Riley was a very tough sergeant because they hadn’t even seen Michael yet, but he had leave this Sunday and, after he’d visited his family, he was meeting Junie at Manly. All the agony of waiting while trapped in the world of the Farthingtons was about to be relieved by one sweet afternoon. The knowledge had kept the wedding farce bearable although what to say to Michael was causing her to lie awake and stare at the patterned cornices on her ceiling. She’d counted one hundred and twenty plaster roses last night.
Digger stirred and licked her fingers before sleeping again, and Junie stroked his ears absently, listening to the wireless. It was playing ‘They Can’t Take That Away from Me’ and she found herself reliving the last moment she’d shared with Michael before they’d parted. The palms in the backyard swayed in the summer breeze and she could almost hear the waves crashing as she’d uttered the words of acquiescence he’d begged for: ‘Yes, I will marry you. I will.’
She couldn’t regret them. How could she, when to be his wife was everything she dreamt of? But she did regret giving him false hope, because the truth was she couldn’t possibly marry him. The practical part of her brain knew that as fact. Her parents couldn’t be turned out on the streets and the idea of renting some small place and squeezing them all in had too many flaws. Michael’s modest army wages would barely cover the lowest of rents and her earning prospects were hardly auspicious. And even if, by some small miracle, she could make that work, what of the monies they owed? And her father’s inevitable medical bills? And what of her brothers, Archie and Bill? Heaven only knew if and when they would return, or if they would be able bodied when they did.
Yes, Junie knew all of this and her practical mind accepted it, but the tunnelling rabbit in her mind wasn’t listening to her brain right now – it was listening to her eighteen-year-old heart. And so it continued to run and she continued to walk alongside the great lady or sit with Digger while it did, praying for her rabbit to find a way out. Because to believe her wedding day to Ernest would truly eventuate was like believing someone could invade the great southern lady in her harbour.
Surely such violations were impossible. Surely God could never really let such things come to pass.
Not far away, Marlon Stone stood on George’s Head, trying not to imagine Sydney’s waters and skies suffering the same fate as Pearl Harbor. It looked vulnerable from up here, despite the growing American presence that was combining with the Australians’ and building each day. Memories of the Japanese attack assaulted him but he pushed them away.
The Australians seemed a friendly lot so far, open and welcoming, yet very much on the alert. Japan wouldn’t be catching them unawares, but it could well catch them unprepared. Converted ferries didn’t make very impressive warships but the Australian Navy was small and, with a good chunk of the American fleet decimated at Pearl Harbor, they were all scrambling to make do.
They did have one main reassurance: US aircraft carriers had been at sea during the attack. As a pilot Marlon knew this could prove crucial; the war in the Pacific was likely to come down to air dominance. Hence his part in some of the planning.
He was still trying to become accustomed to his new role as captain and being consulted in such matters. Ironically, his being promoted again was largely due to Major Hamlin, whose wife he’d been intimate with the night before the bombing. The major had been impressed when witnessing Marlon’s quick thinking in hauling the machine gun out of the plane to shoot down the enemy. He said a man who can act like that under pressure, even when his buddy dies alongside him in battle, deserves a promotion. It didn’t hurt that Marlon had more experience flying than most and that he’d gone to Harvard, although no-one seemed aware that he had Native American blood. He wondered if he would be quite so welcomed into the prestigious world of these officers if they did.
Marlon heard his name being called and turned to salute the major as he approached, customary cup of coffee in hand.
‘Thought I’d find you here,’ the major said. ‘Looks a bit like home doesn’t it?’
They gazed out at the vast panorama before them and Marlon had to agree that it wasn’t unlike San Francisco, with its waterways and prominent bridge. But this city was something else again. The afternoon sun was burnishing the sandstone cliffs along North Head and the deep blue water formed a vast, rippling ribbon across the mouth of the harbour then all the way down towards the city. It moved in liquid satin past glowing beaches, bushland, rocky edges and sprawling suburbs to find the heart of Sydney: a divided, splendid metropolis on either edge of the great bridge.
‘Yes and no,’ Marlon replied, thinking of Liwa. There was only one place that was truly home, but she would say it ran in his veins wherever he went, so lon
g as the ocean could find him.
The major shrugged. ‘This is the third Pacific harbour I’ve been to in recent weeks and they’re all the same to me. Places I have to help stop the Japs blowing up.’
Marlon nodded in understanding and they stood together watching the sunset blaze. He found himself thinking about the major’s wife, whose name he now knew was Samantha. He probably shouldn’t have gone near her that night in Hawaii, but how was he supposed to know she was married? The second and third nights back home he couldn’t excuse so easily, except to admit he wanted some respite from the sleeplessness and nightmares that had followed him to California. Besides, Samantha had sought him out in San Francisco and taken him to bed, not the other way around.
He could hardly be blamed for their brief affair. But he felt guilty all the same. Hamlin had turned out to be a pretty decent guy and Marlon was spending a great deal of time with him since they’d arrived in Sydney. He was just grateful Samantha wouldn’t be joining them.
‘Pity we didn’t get a bit more leave back home,’ the major said thoughtfully and Marlon knew he was thinking about his wife too. The guilt twisted a little tighter.
‘Yes, still, it was nice to see family again,’ Marlon said lightly, hiding it. That much was true. Liwa had been so relieved he’d survived she’d made him sit through an entire ritual up in the hills, insisting he allow her to tattoo him to thank the gods, marking a fish on his inside wrist. Despite the pain it did make him feel better somehow, like Slim and Joe had been with him in spirit. Even though he still couldn’t quite accept that they were gone, he was now able to feel grateful for the times he’d spent with them. And that was a start, as Liwa liked to say.
Marlon wasn’t about to share that memory with the major, of course, because the truth was, at times like that, he knew he was really more Miwok than white man. But when it came down to it, essentially it mattered nil, because this wasn’t just a white man’s war. Liwa was wrong about that.
The major offered him a cigarette and he took one, lighting it.
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