Among the officials who boarded the Derna in Fremantle to accompany her to Melbourne was Major William Weale. Although his function was ostensibly to complete the passenger cards and facilitate the registration of aliens before they disembarked, his task was to investigate conditions on board and report to the Department of Immigration. From the moment he set foot on the vessel he was appalled by the filth, neglect and overcrowding he saw.
Thirty-seven passengers disembarked in Fremantle to begin their new life on Australia’s west coast. Among them was Arnold Ohtra, with his wife and daughters Tiia and Lea. Philip Georgiades and his wife Germaine also left the ship at Fremantle. They decided to catch the train to Melbourne at their own expense rather than spend another day on the Derna.
As the Derna slowly pulled away from the wharf on the final leg of the voyage to Melbourne, everyone was discussing the investigation into the so-called Communists. Since the name of the author of the allegations hadn’t been made public, passengers speculated about his identity. Some, like Dr Frant, thought it must have been the German with the SS tattoo.
But the man with the tattoo was no longer on board. Someone recalled seeing him go ashore in Fremantle with his attractive dark-haired wife, but he had not returned. People were furious that he had given them the slip and escaped justice. Only a few passengers knew the truth: although the German had been an SS officer, he had protected a Jewish girl during the war and saved her life. They had fallen in love and married, and after the war ended, she reciprocated by protecting him from retribution. They had come to Australia to start a new life far from the tragedies of the past.
No one was more impatient for the journey to end than Halina Kalowski. She was now seven months pregnant, haggard and listless. She had consulted a medico in Perth to check whether she should leave the ship and complete the journey by air. Despite her pale face, strained expression and the dark rings under her eyes, he saw no reason to worry. Her pulse was good and the foetal heart beat was strong.
‘You’ll be fine,’ he assured her. ‘There’s no reason why you shouldn’t continue the voyage. After all, you still have two months to go.’
19
Sitting on her bunk, Elfriede Hof was writing in the morocco leather diary in which she recorded every detail of the voyage in her neat, well-spaced handwriting. This time she was noting the natural phenomenon we had witnessed the previous day. After a morning of gusty winds and rough seas in the Great Australian Bight, at 2.18 in the afternoon the light suddenly began to fade. The moon’s shadow swept across the sun and within a short time only a brilliant crescent remained visible at the edge. Primitive tribes interpret a solar eclipse as an evil portent signifying the anger of the gods, but even the passengers of the Derna shivered as darkness fell over the world. As the moon continued its path across the sun, the crescent of light gradually grew larger, and two hours later, the moon slid off and daylight returned. A sigh went up, part disappointment that the miracle was over, and part relief because the world had become familiar once more. For many passengers, however, this spectacle was soon to be eclipsed by another natural phenomenon which occurred just as unexpectedly the following day.
Having recorded most of the previous day’s events, Elfriede glanced out of the porthole, put her pen down and called her sister. ‘Ilse, come and look at this!’ A stocky man was lurching up the gangplank, clutching a bottle in each hand. It was the chief stoker. They had often seen him emerging from the engine room, a sodden kerchief tied around his beefy neck. After leaning against the rail for a few minutes to gulp fresh air, he would return to the inferno. Accompanying the stoker onto the ship was one of his mates whose unsteady legs also buckled as he attempted to steer him along the gangway. They’d obviously had a merry time in Fremantle on their last day ashore.
Elfriede had spent her day sampling Australian food, the wonders of which she was recording in her journal. Big ham rolls, luscious ice cream and chocolate sold in blocks. Although she wanted her supply to last until we reached Melbourne, she couldn’t resist and snapped off another square. As she munched, she felt more optimistic than she’d felt for weeks.
The clanking of the anchor reassured us that we were finally leaving Fremantle. As the ship started to move away from the shore, young Nick Matussevich looked down and saw a dead albatross lying on the deck. When he ran down to Cabin 14 to tell his mother, she said in a sepulchral tone that sent a shiver down his back, ‘That means death’.
Several hours later, the little green island of Rottnest came into sight, and Clara Kraus pointed it out to Peter and Paul, holding them up for a better view. Although she had done her best to keep them away from the other children, they were both coughing. She smiled down at them. ‘Not long now. Only a few more days and we’ll be in Melbourne.’
Clara had hated the Derna from the moment she walked up the gangplank and she hated the old rust bucket even more now, but at least they were almost there. But as she watched the West Australian coast recede, she became aware of a peculiar motion. Surely it wasn’t possible, but she could have sworn the ship was turning around. A moment later, she knew she hadn’t imagined it. They had made a full circle and were heading back towards Fremantle. Within minutes, the whole ship was buzzing with the news. Stamatios Sellas, the forty-year-old chief stoker, had collapsed and died.
Forced to stifle their chagrin at this new delay because of the tragedy, the passengers speculated on the cause of the unfortunate man’s death. Those like Elfriede, who had watched him stumble aboard with his liquor, had no doubt that he’d drunk himself to death. Some elaborated, adding that he and his mate had made a wager to see who could drink the most and he had been the unlucky winner. Hearing that the stoker had drunk himself to death, Vassiliki Fatseas listened wide-eyed and formed her own impression of the incident. ‘He must have burst!’ she told Petro. The image of someone exploding after he’d consumed too much liquor lodged itself in her imaginative mind and haunted her for years to come.
By seven that evening, the ship had returned to port, where it was met by a police launch carrying Sergeant Bunt and Constable Johnson. With the appropriate air of official gravity, they took the body to the Fremantle morgue. When the passengers discovered that the death certificate had been issued by the ship’s doctor, they could not conceal their scorn. How could a medico who had succeeded in avoiding contact with live patients throughout the voyage possibly know what had caused death in someone who had expired?
After we had rounded Cape Leeuwin, everyone’s spirits lifted. We were already in the Great Australian Bight and there seemed little between us and Melbourne’s Port Phillip Bay. This was a great source of comfort to Halina Kalowski. She lay on the deck chair, her dark curls damp with perspiration from the humidity, and closed her eyes, wishing that when she opened them, she would see Melbourne.
She hardly noticed when her friend Matylda leaned over and wiped the beads of perspiration off her forehead. ‘Can I get you anything to eat? You’ve hardly eaten anything for days,’ she said. Halina shook her head. When she next opened her eyes, her husband Mietek and little son Stefan were looking at her with worried faces.
As Mietek handed her a glass of iced water, she tried to smile. ‘I’ll feel better as soon as the ship stops rocking. It’s got worse, hasn’t it?’
For the past few hours, the sea had been more churned up and flecks of foam crested on the rising waves. Mietek looked at his wife’s dark-ringed eyes burning out of her thin face. Only three more days, he consoled her. She didn’t want to tell him that for the past two days she hadn’t felt the baby moving and that the stillness inside her womb terrified her.
By evening the ship pitched and heaved. The bow rose up as though trying to reach the sky, and after a brief pause plunged downwards as if diving to the bottom of the ocean.
Concerned about the children as always, Topka collected them up on her way to the washroom and urged them to hold onto the rails in the companionways. Her arm around little Ginette, who had
never overcome her revulsion of communal washing, Topka gave her a hug. Poor kids. All they wanted was someone to love them and give them a cuddle.
At least now that the Derna had replenished its supplies in Fremantle there was ample water for washing clothes. Topka had washed out the children’s underwear and had begun soaping the younger ones when the ship suddenly pitched and water sloshed all over the floor. ‘Hold on tight so you don’t fall over!’ she called out.
The door opened and the woman who had complained at the beginning of the voyage about having to share a cabin with Jews stepped inside with her little daughter. At that moment the ship lurched again and they both slipped and fell. Topka helped the little girl to her feet and guided her to the basin so she could hold on. In the meantime the mother, sprawled on the floor, looked beseechingly at Topka and called out, ‘Come and help me!’
Topka gave her a withering look. ‘I wouldn’t want you to catch some terrible disease,’ she said. ‘I’ll look after your child but you can pick yourself up.’
Out on deck, Petro had found a child’s abandoned three-wheeler. He’d never seen such a thing before and after watching its wheels turn, he sat on it and pushed off. Just at that moment, a huge wave punched the side of the ship with such force that the tricycle, with Petro on it, hurtled towards the railing. Unable to stop it, he could feel his heart thumping with terror, certain that he would be flung into the churning waves. At the last moment he was yanked off the bike. He looked up into the strained white face of his sister Mary.
For the older Matussevich teenagers, the wave-tossed ship provided the most exhilarating ride of their lives. Standing at the bow of the Derna as she plunged and rose, plunged and rose, they held on to the rail and shrieked with sheer joy, feeling at one with the roller-coaster ocean. This was freedom.
That night, as wild waves tossed the ship from side to side, there was a frightening crash. The cutlery had fallen out of the drawers in the dining room and most of the crockery had smashed. Broken glass and large pieces of the thick white plates covered the floor. In the cabins, tables toppled over, suitcases slid across the floor, bags flew off bunks and glass splintered everywhere.
In all the chaos, Elfriede started giggling helplessly. ‘The pram!’ she gasped, holding her sides with laughter. ‘Look at the pram!’ As though it had a will of its own, the pram rolled across the cabin, stopped against a wall, and rolled back and forth with each movement of the ship.
In the morning, under a bruised sky, the decks were lonely, windswept and dismal, as people with greenish faces crawled out of cabins clutching their stomachs, heaving over the rails and wiping threads of mucus from their mouths. Defying the rough seas, they grabbed at the rails just before the next lurch, edged against walls to avoid being tossed from side to side, and clutched at banisters to avoid being hurled headfirst down the stairs. With most of the cups and plates broken, the waiters were relieved that few diners turned up for meals. Those who did found that the coffee sloshed perilously in their cups and boiled eggs rolled from one end of the long table to the other.
All day long in the Great Australian Bight the barometer tumbled. The swell ran ever higher and the ship wallowed in the deep furrows of the sea. Everything swung, slid, slanted, tilted or reeled from side to side as the ship was buffeted by waves that pounded it, while the gale whistled through the decks. Sheeted sprays drenched the ship from bow to stern. Throughout the wild night that followed, the old timbers of the Derna groaned and shuddered as though the vessel itself was engaged in a life and death struggle with the ocean.
A loud thump woke Halina from a fitful sleep. In the cramped, fetid cabin that stank of vomit, sweat and too many bodies crowded into one small space, the door snapped off its hinges. She sat up with a start. Where was Stefan? Unable to see him, she jumped off her bunk in panic. Immediately she doubled up in pain. Holding her belly, she wondered whether the cramp was caused by something she had eaten, or perhaps she had pulled a muscle when she sat up so suddenly. A frightening thought squatted in the corner of her mind like an invisible toad croaking on the edge of a pond, but she dismissed it. It wasn’t possible. She still had two months to go.
Next morning, the waves slapped the ship with less ferocity and the passengers began to clean their devastated cabins by picking up soiled blankets, shaving mugs and shattered glass. When Matylda glanced over at Halina, she stopped what she was doing. Halina’s pupils were dilated and she was biting her lip in an effort to stop herself from crying out. ‘Halina, what is it?’ she asked, looking at her friend in alarm. Surely it couldn’t be the baby, not now, with only two days to go before we reached Melbourne. Her mouth dry with pain and fear, Halina whispered hoarsely, ‘Matylda, I’m in labour.’
She had recognised the spasms that were convulsing her body, and knew that with the second baby, labour wouldn’t last very long. What she had dreaded was about to happen, without a competent ship’s doctor or even a delivery ward and two months too soon. The captain’s warning on that first day came back to haunt her. Where could she give birth? Who would help her? And could such a premature baby survive, especially on this ship?
There was no point going for the elusive Dr Themelis. When Matylda ran to tell Mietek that his wife was about to give birth, he rushed to find Dr Frant. As it happened, he was an obstetrician from the Polish town of Bydgoszcz. Although his authoritative manner and commanding presence inspired confidence in others, on this occasion he didn’t feel it himself. As he knew only too well, even in well-equipped hospitals babies born at seven months had little chance of surviving, and the Derna had no facilities of any kind for confinement. He only hoped the birth would be straightforward, but what would happen afterwards, God only knew.
As Mietek’s cabin was larger and airier than Halina’s, Dr Frant decided that it would be the best place. The occupants were asked to vacate it and sheets were draped around the bunk where Halina lay to give her some privacy. Her eyes bulged in her pale face and her hands gripped the side of the bunk with each contraction, while Matylda smoothed her hair from her perspiring forehead and sponged her with a damp cloth. As the head crowned, Dr Frant said, ‘Hold her chin down to help her push.’ Halina moaned and dug her fingers into her friend’s hand as the veins stood out on her temples, and with the last of her strength, she pushed out the baby. As the tiny body slipped out, Dr Frant cut the cord. Tears of joy, exhaustion and relief poured down Halina’s face as she held her tiny daughter who looked like a bruised little bird.
The delivery over, Dr Frant promised to return later to check on them. ‘This baby is very tiny,’ he said to Matylda on his way out, shaking his head. The expression on his face made further comment unnecessary. Matylda looked at the baby, hardly bigger than a kitten, and knew that she shouldn’t be handled too much. Recalling the way premature babies were swaddled in Poland, she placed her on a pillow and wrapped a sheet around the entire bundle, marvelling at this miracle of nature. ‘Look how perfect she is,’ she whispered to Halina, whose eyes shone with love.
Mietek, who had been hovering outside the cabin waiting for news of the birth, broke down and wept when he heard that it was over and his wife and baby were well. Taking charge, Matylda sent him to find hot water bottles for the baby. Glad to have something to do, he did the rounds of the ship and returned with four of them, which they filled with hot tap water and spread around the baby to keep her warm. Late that night, Matylda was startled from her sleep by a man’s voice. ‘I’m sorry to wake you but could you come and put the baby’s arm back inside the pillow?’ Mietek was whispering. ‘I’m frightened that she’ll catch cold but I’m afraid to move her arm in case it breaks!’
Later in the day, Halina had an unexpected visitor. ‘So it’s you!’ the captain growled, recognising the woman who had presented herself on the first day of the voyage with the other pregnant women. ‘You got yourself into this! I told you there were no facilities on board for delivery.’ His gaze softened when he peered at the miniature human being
cradled in her mother’s arms, but he shut the door behind him with more force than necessary. Halina was too euphoric to care.
As the baby was too weak to suck, Halina expressed the milk and fed her with an eye dropper, while Matylda supplemented it with sugar and water. The baby weighed around one and a half kilos, had a blueish tinge and a cry like a sick bird. Hour by hour, she became more listless and Halina grew more apprehensive. Would love and determination be enough to keep her alive for the next few days?
She decided to call the baby Jennifer Fay Derna. Jennifer was an anglicised version of Mietek’s mother’s name and aptly meant ‘white wave’. Fay was after her mother who had been murdered in the Warsaw Ghetto. Her father’s last words to her had been, ‘Whatever happens to us, you must survive.’ Halina smiled at the tiny scrap of life in her arms, so perfectly formed, and born in Australian waters. She had survived. And so would little Jennifer.
20
By one of those strange quirks of fate that make fact more incredible than fiction, the Derna arrived in Melbourne on Guy Fawkes Day. Although few of the passengers had heard of the dissident who had attempted to blow up the English parliament back in 1605, it seemed appropriate to end a voyage marked with feuds, plots and intrigues on a day that commemorated the victory of law and order over mayhem and violence.
At dawn, when grey skies shed a grudging light over the water, the pilots came on board. As the ship nosed into the harbour, anxious faces clustered on the top deck for their first glimpse of the city which for many would become home. Impatience for the voyage to end mingled with anxiety. Despite its hardships, the journey had kept real life at bay, but now they would have to meet it full on. Even the most optimistic souls sighed when they looked out at land that crouched sullen and intractable under the drizzle along the damp Victorian coast.
The Voyage of Their Life Page 24