by Annie Seaton
‘That means it can land on water?’ she asked as she let go of Jack’s hand.
‘That’s right. Its unique aeronautical design and twelve hundred horsepower engines means it can travel for up to three and a half thousand miles without landing.’ He caught up to her and frowned. ‘Sorry, I’m probably boring you with technical details. It’s the engineer in me. It’s a small aircraft with a short body and a single fixed wing.’
‘You’re an engineer? You’ve been to university?’ Lily’s interest flared.
Jack nodded. ‘Yes, I finished at Sydney Uni last year and a few months later, I joined the air force.’
‘Oh, you’re so lucky. How old are you?’ Lily didn’t care if she was being forthright. The more Jack spoke, the more she was getting to like him and wanted to know about his life.
‘I turned twenty-one just before Christmas. What about you?’
‘I’m almost seventeen. If it wasn’t for this blasted war, I would have been going to Brisbane to university next year, but Mama won’t let me now. I want to be a journalist.’
Jack held her gaze with his, and that funny feeling quivered in her tummy again.
‘You know, she’s probably right. You’re much better off up here until the war is over.’
‘And how long do you think that will be?’ Lily put her hands on her hips and leaned towards him. It was hard to see Jack’s expression as the sunlight dappling through the foliage put his face in shadow.
He shrugged. ‘I don’t think anyone knows. Now that the Japs have come into the war, things have changed.’
‘Better or worse?’ Lily tipped her head to the side.
‘I don’t know.’ Jack’s voice was quiet as he held out his hand to her. ‘Come on, we’ve gotten off track. Come and show me this sawmill.’
Lily shook her head emphatically, ignoring his outstretched hand. ‘No, I want to know all about it. Tell me, what do the Catalinas do? Are they bombers?’
Jack shook his head slowly and Lily sensed he was reluctant to say too much.
‘No. It’s pretty mundane what we do, nothing exciting. And there’s nothing for you to worry about here.’ His eyes crinkled as he smiled at her. ‘Can I call you Liliana? It’s such a pretty name, it’s a shame to shorten it to Lil.’
Heat rushed up into her cheeks, and she nodded. ‘Yes, that would be nice. Lil is the person who gets bossed around and told what to do. The girls at school called me Lily, but yes, Liliana is fine.’ She turned and walked ahead of him along the path. ‘What do you do on the plane? I only know what I’ve read in the Courier Mail.’ Her voice was soft as she glanced back at him. ‘No matter what you do, it’s going to be dangerous, isn’t it? Even just being up in the air over the water is dangerous.’
Jack looked away and Lily thought she saw him nod slightly.
‘Do you get scared?’ She looked at him curiously as they walked deeper into the bush.
Jack didn’t answer until they reached the end of the path, where a rocky outcrop looked over a flat area on a saddle where the mill had stood. He held out his hand and Lily grasped it tightly as she jumped off the last rock.
‘I am, but I’d never tell the others that. I didn’t intend joining the air force.’ A gust of wind caught Jack’s hair and Lily focused on his hand as he pushed it back. She didn’t want him to know that she’d noticed the flush on his cheeks as he put his head down and kicked at a small cairn of stones at the edge of the mill site.
‘It’s not that I’m a coward. Something happened and before I knew it, I’d enlisted, was in the air force and became an LAC—a light aircraftman that stands for—after I did my courses. I’ve been trained as an observer. And sometimes, I get sent places where there is construction work at the air fields.’ He lifted his head, holding Lily’s gaze and his eyes were sad. ‘I’ve never talked to anyone like this before.’
Lily reached for his hand and squeezed it. ‘You can trust me, Jack. I appreciate you being so honest with me. And any time you want to talk about how you feel, tell me.’ Lily dropped his hand and crossed the clearing. ‘This is where they cut the timber and milled it. In the old days, the method used for getting the timber down was hard work. Where the pine trees grow tallest, it’s rough and steep, and Dad told me that they called the way they got them down the “shoot and jack” procedure. A tree would be felled, lopped of its branches and then “shot” end-on down the hillside to this gully. Sometimes, the log would be halted by rocks or standing trees. Dad said if that happened, the cutters would manoeuvre it free with jacks and levers until its downward slide was resumed. He used to work with them when he and Mama first came to the island, but they don’t mill anymore. In the gully below us here, you can just see the head of Upper Gulnare Inlet and there is a tramline. The logs were loaded onto trolleys and sent on their way by gravity.’
‘Cripes, that would have been fast, looking at the angle of that slope,’ Jack exclaimed. The flush had gone from his cheeks now, and the intense awareness between them had faded but Lily knew that a friendship had been forged up here on the hill above Sawmill Bay.
‘Yes, it was. Sometimes the logs shot down to the gullies and got stuck so firmly they had to be abandoned. I’ll show you some of them if we climb the peak. How long are you here for?’
‘A week. We have to go back on New Year’s Day.’
‘A whole week! Well then, we can show you all the island.’
Lily hid the excited anticipation that filled her. A week in Jack’s company would be most enjoyable.
Mama had lunch ready for them when they got back to the house. Dad and the boys were out fishing, and Katarina was swinging on the old wooden swing hanging from the tree beside the outhouse. Mama’s gaze was shrewd, and Lily was aware of her high colour every time Jack looked her way. She fanned herself.
‘It’s really hot out there today, Mama.’ She turned to the three men who were sitting on the verandah steps. ‘I think it might be too hot to climb the peak.’
‘No. We’re tough. Maybe you girls aren’t up to it.’ Charlie glanced at Tatiana, who burred straight up.
‘Of course we are. We’ll get there twice as quick as you lot,’ she said with her hands on her hips.
‘I think you girls can have the afternoon off and take these young men up to the peak. The view from up there is incroyable.’ Mama’s voice was soft and her smile indulgent as she stared across the verandah to the water. The early afternoon breeze had picked up and the water was sparkling where the waves were dancing in the sunlight. ‘I’ll never forget the day Boyd took me up there for the first time. We’d only been on the island a week, and we were living in one of the old huts over at the old sawmill.’ Lily caught Jack’s eye but it was obvious that he knew they shouldn’t have gone there alone. He said nothing. ‘I was wondering how I was ever going to survive on this island, away from everything I knew. We climbed to the top and I looked out to the most beautiful view in the world, and I knew it was all going to be all right.’
Lily walked over to her mother and hugged her. It was good to see that she was in a happy mood today. Sometimes, her unhappiness pressed on the family like a dead weight and the children knew when to stay out of her way.
‘Come on, Tat, help me get some sandwiches. We’ll pack lunch and have a picnic at the peak.’
Katarina jumped off the swing and ran over. ‘Me too. A picnic.’
Mama reached down and picked her up. ‘You and I will have our own picnic here, sweetheart. The hill is too high for your little legs yet.’
Lily smiled and pushed away the ever-present worry that seemed to have been with her since the war had been declared. At least one good thing had come from it.
Jack had come into their lives.
CHAPTER
11
December 28, 1941
Tat and Liliana led the three men, each with a pack on their backs carrying sandwiches, drink and fruit, into the bush at the back of Sawmill Beach. The men forged ahead and Tat and Lily smiled
at each other in a rare moment of understanding. They would soon see how difficult the climb was. Soon, the huffs and panting reached them as the men climbed slowly through the diverse vegetation. Rainforest gullies were replaced by windblown saddles, and then, when they entered the rainforest again, the canopy provided cool shade and dappled sunlight. Halfway up, before the track turned into the strenuous haul to the summit, Lily called a halt so they could all have a drink.
Charlie and Roger were red-faced and sweating, but Jack’s breathing was even and he hadn’t raised a flush. There was little conversation before they took off again, scrambling over the rocky outcrops. Gradually, the trees thinned out and the peak loomed above them. Charlie and Roger had been full of chatter as they tried to show off their prowess scurrying up the peak but by the time they reached the top, they barely had enough breath to speak.
No one spoke as they stood looking down over the magnificent vista of the islands. Lily had been to the peak many times, and the beauty of the view never palled for her. In the distance, smoke curled lazily from a couple of steamers heading north, and the whitewash from their engines cut a perfect swathe in the deep sapphire water.
‘You’ll need to get fitter than that if you’re going to fight in the war, boys.’ Tatiana stood near the pile of rocks at the top of the peak. Jack was quiet as he walked across to Lily and they stood and looked out over the water. Down below, in the centre of the Passage, a grey vessel made its way north.
‘It makes it real to me, seeing those navy ships in the Passage.’ Lily shook her head slowly as she watched the progress of the ship. ‘The world’s changing, isn’t it?’
Jack put his hand on her shoulder and squeezed it gently. ‘I know what you mean.’ His voice was determined but his words were sad. ‘It makes past hurts seem very insignificant, in the big picture.’ He smiled at her and lifted his hand. ‘Come on, girls, you’re supposed to be feeding us.’
‘Look.’ Roger pointed to the north after they’d sat for a while and demolished the sandwiches the girls had made. ‘I’m sure that’s the mountain just south of Bowen. You can almost see the town from here. There’s that high island we can see from the hill in town.’
‘Yes, that’s Cape Gloucester. It’s not far by sea. Just over forty nautical miles,’ Lily said. ‘When the westerly wind blows, it’s almost clear enough to see the houses up there on the hill.’
‘That’s the way we’re going back.’ Jack pointed to the launch making its way north. ‘By steamer.’
Tat stood and beckoned the boys over to the eastern side of the drop, but Jack stayed by Lily’s side.
‘Thank you for suggesting this. It’s beautiful,’ he said.
Lily dropped her eyes and reached for the paper that the sandwiches had been wrapped in. ‘Dad asked us to show you the island. We don’t get to meet many people our own age up here. Most of the guests are families with young children. All it means for us is more cooking and washing up. We don’t very often get to have fun like this, so it’s pretty special for us too.’
‘You’re pretty special too.’ Jack’s quiet murmur was overlaid by Tatiana’s call, and Lily wasn’t sure if she’d heard him correctly.
‘Okay, boys. Who’s up for a challenge?’ Her sister’s grin was cheeky as she looked at Lily. ‘I bet Lily and I can beat you back to Sawmill Bay.’
‘We’ll see about that.’ Jack’s laugh was loud as he grabbed a bag and swung it on to his back. ‘Come on, men. We have a reputation to uphold.’
Charlie and Roger took off with a loud whoop, and Jack wasn’t far behind them as they slid down the track from the peak. Stones rattled and rolled down the hill, and Lily smiled as she heard the odd curse float up. Lily and Tat climbed slowly and steadily at a sedate pace until they reached the track. They knew the shortcut that diverted from the path at the back of Joe’s Beach, where some steps had been cut into the cliff below the sawmill. They could hear the boys tearing along the path that zigzagged above them as they cut across to the bay.
By the time they reached the beach, the sounds from the bush behind them had faded into the distance.
‘I thought soldiers were supposed to be fit?’ Tatiana jumped onto the bow of their father’s hoop pine sailing boat moored in Sawmill Bay as they waited for the airmen to catch up.
‘They’ll be ready for a swim.’ As the men got closer and pushed their way through the overgrown track, Lily was anxious to get back to the house. She’d spotted the mail launch in the bay as they headed down and she was hoping for a letter from Amelia. As soon as they had a swim, she’d make Tat come back with her. It was time to start helping Mama prepare dinner anyway. She had been very lenient to let them have the afternoon off, and in the company of three young men.
Roger and Charlie burst out onto the sand, red-faced and panting.
‘How did you get here first?’ Roger cried. ‘Not fair!’
They pulled their shirts off and flung them onto the sand before running to the water and diving in. Jack stepped onto the sand and walked leisurely across to Lily and watched as the other two dunked each other in the deep channel at the edge of the coral. He hadn’t raised a sweat.
‘Watch out for those killer jellyfish,’ he called out.
Tatiana was on her toes poised to dive into the water from the edge of the boat. ‘No, we’re fine out here on our island. They’re only in the estuaries on the mainland.’ She shot a cheeky grin at the men before diving into the deep water behind them.
‘You only have to worry about the tiger sharks out here,’ Lily added dryly. ‘Aren’t you going to swim?’
Jack’s gaze was intense. ‘Are you?’
‘No. I’ve got things I need to do.’ Lily glanced over at Tatiana. She was showing off by swimming out to the middle of the deep channel at the edge of the bay.
‘Do you want company on the way back to the house?’
‘No. I’ll wait for Tat. She has chores too.’
Jack pulled off his shirt and for a moment, Lily thought he’d changed his mind about swimming, but he laid it on the sand.
‘Sit and talk to me some more,’ he said.
Lily was used to the local fishermen getting about in shorts and no shirts, but for some reason, Jack’s bare chest sent a flash of something unfamiliar through her again, and she moved a little further away from him.
Lily stood as Tat swam close to the jetty. ‘Come on, Tat. We have to go and help Mama at the house.’
As she and her sister took their leave and walked back to the house, Lily was conscious of Jack watching her.
* * *
As the week passed, they went for more walks and swims between their chores at the house, and Lily found herself talking to Jack more often than the other two. He had good manners, and was kind, and patient with her brothers and sisters. She found Roger and Charlie a bit—well, coarse, was the word Mama would use— but Jack was well-educated and he’d read and loved many of her favourite novels.
‘You’ve really and truly read Gone with the Wind?’ Lily asked one afternoon as they walked back to the house after a swim before dinner. She nudged him as colour ran into Jack’s cheeks.
‘Yes. It was interesting.’
‘Interesting?’ Lily put her hand to her chest and pretended to swoon. ‘It is so romantic.’
‘It was interesting to read about slavery in the south.’
‘Okay.’ She grinned back at Jack as he smiled at her.
On the last afternoon before they left, Lily swung in the hammock on the verandah overlooking the bay. Jack sat on the steps, lost in his thoughts. The silence was comfortable and Lily didn’t feel the need to keep up endless conversation. Mama had been quiet today, and had gone for a nap before dinner, taking Katarina with her. Tat had disappeared with a muttered comment about checking on the goats. Dad and the boys had been up on the hill since the twins had finished their lessons. There was always plenty to do on the farm, and they all had their own chores.
Lily’s book lay unopened
in her lap as she watched the boats travel south past the island. There had been a lot of water traffic today, more than usual. She wondered if it had anything to do with what old Mr Bauer had told Dad the other day. He said there was a rumour that the Japs had reached the islands, and her nerves were more skittish than usual. His uncle had seen some soldiers on the seaward side of Hook Island but Dad laughed and said that Johnny Bauer was always on the turps and made up stories.
But Hook Island was just north of their island, and Lily wondered if Dad was trying to stop them worrying.
All afternoon, every rustle from the bush had her peering into the trees behind the house. Roger and Charlie had gone down for a last swim, but Jack had offered to stay and help peel the vegetables for the early dinner Mama had planned before the three young men caught the second launch back to Bowen. Jack seemed to be slowly winning Mama around, and Lily didn’t mind that he tried hard. She grinned; Jack’s presence had got her out of the dinner preparation tonight. She looked up as he pushed open the door and handed her a tall glass of Mama’s lemon syrup. She hadn’t noticed him go inside.
‘I should be looking after you. You’re the guest,’ she said with a laugh.
‘My pleasure.’ Jack took the chair beside the hammock and leaned back. He looked at her curiously. ‘Will you stay on the island?’
‘What, forever?’ Lily shook her head.
‘Maybe. Marry a local and settle here?’ Jack looked across the bay, his eyes distant for a moment.
‘Oh gosh, no. As soon as the war is over and Mama is happy that the world is safe again, I’ll go to Brisbane. Maybe university. Unless I can get a cadetship on the Courier Mail.’ Lily spread her arms wide. ‘And then I’m going to see the world! I’ll come back here when I’m old.’
Jack shook his head slowly and laughed.
‘Why are you laughing? Don’t you think a woman should do that?’ Liliana’s voice was full of indignation. ‘Are you one of these blokes who think a woman’s place is tied to the stove and having a child every year?’