Whitsunday Dawn

by Annie Seaton

  ‘Thank you.’ Her eyes were bright, but her hand was steady as she sipped the hot drink. Fynn sat at the other end of the seat.

  They sat up on the deck and talked for an hour. The more she shared with him about her father’s end of the conversation, the more Fynn’s respect grew. Liv had responded to her father’s tirade in a calm and controlled manner. He didn’t mention that he’d met Andrew Sheridan at a meeting at the Reef Authority in Brisbane six months earlier. He’d watched the complex corporate moves he’d pulled off over the ensuing months, bringing the final approval for the coal loader, the huge mine in the central western basin, and the rail line, closer to completion every day.

  There was no doubt about the truths that Liv had told her father on the phone. He was an unscrupulous businessman who would stop at nothing to make money. And Fynn knew Sheridan would do anything it took, even if his own daughter was in the firing line. It was disappointing that Liv hadn’t accepted his offer to stay on his boat after they collected her luggage, but he could understand why she’d said no. He could still keep a close eye on her in the apartment until Greg published the exposé that he was working on.

  The one thing he was worried about was Sheridan’s next move. Fynn didn’t trust him at all. Greg had uncovered some pretty murky things about his past, and he was sure that Liv had no idea what her father was capable of.

  But surely his own daughter would be out of his sights? Fynn was pleased that the two minders hadn’t seen him wait for her and bring her to his boat.

  CHAPTER

  16

  2 May, 1942

  For Jack, the week of leave on Whitsunday Island after Christmas had been like living in fairyland, and while the island was now a distant recollection, the memory of Liliana’s company had seen him through some difficult times. It hadn’t taken him long to lose the calm that he had regained in those seven idyllic days. Now it was like the fragment of a pleasant dream that stays briefly with you on awakening, not that he had many of them these days. Once back on base at Port Moresby, the tension was palpable twenty-four hours a day. Even when the airmen weren’t up in the Black Cats, danger surrounded them.

  ‘Run for it, guys. Here comes another Charlie.’ Two days ago, the urgent call from one of the Yanks on base had sent the men running for the jungle. The drone of the tired engines of the approaching Japanese Betty bombers—christened ‘washing machine Charlies’ by the American airmen—and the subsequent explosions of the bombs as they hit Port Moresby and the harbour, ensured that Jack had little sleep. He shared a hut with ginger-haired Megsy, the airframe fitter on the Cat.

  In the first raid, three Catalinas were destroyed at their mooring and a fourth was damaged. The squadron headquarters took a direct hit in the second raid the next day, and they lost an airman. Johnny Mac was from Tamworth, not far from Jack’s home in the Hunter Valley, and his death had hit hard.

  For the next few weeks, the smallest sound would wake him and he’d jump from his stretcher, ready to flee the hut into the jungle. Megsy snored in the stretcher next to him as Jack lay back down each time he woke, feeling like a coward. Those two bombing raids had ended any complacency he’d held about being safe on base.

  At the end of April their wing commander, John Hughes—known to the airmen as Smiley—called them into the briefing room. His face and voice were grim. ‘We’re pulling out, so pack your kit bags, men. The 11 and 20 Squadrons are shifting to Bowen. We just don’t have the manpower here to build an airbase and the Japanese are getting too close and too fast. Tomorrow afternoon, lads. It’ll give you time for a kip after your last mission out of Moresby.’

  Relief rippled through the room. Over two hundred hours of flying had been done in the last three weeks, and it was unsustainable. Jack couldn’t help the grin that tugged at his lips, even as guilt flooded him when he thought of how Johnny Mac wouldn’t be going home. His relief soon disappeared when Smiley pulled down the map on the wall at the front of the briefing hut. Perspiration trickled down Jack’s neck as the unbearable heat mingled with his apprehension.

  ‘Captain Munford. Your crew is up for the milk run tonight.’

  Jack glanced at Megsy. The airframe fitter was a stocky man and his short-cropped ginger hair was distinctive in the crowd of airmen. Last time they’d flown a milk run, they’d encountered a severe electrical storm on the way back. Their aircraft had dropped over a thousand feet without warning. Jack still had raw, weeping scabs on his elbows where he’d slammed into the side of the turret. The tropical heat meant infection set in quickly.

  ‘Debriefing for the flight crew now.’ Smiley glanced at Jack and Megsy, his expression dour and his mouth set in a straight line as usual. ‘NCOs, you are dismissed. Officers, please join me for breakfast in the Officer’s Mess after the briefing.’

  Jack and Megsy walked out together and closed the door of the tin hut behind them. As Megsy cupped his hand around a rollie, he caught Jack’s eye.

  ‘Strewth, he’s a sour blighter. Sun don’t shine anywhere there.’ Megsy’s voice was quiet as he blew out the first puff of smoke.

  ‘I wouldn’t like to have his responsibility at the moment,’ Jack replied. He looked up at the sky. Clouds tipped the top of the range, but the rest of the sky was clear, and it looked like the relentless tropical rain would stay away for at least a few hours.

  ‘So what do you reckon? Liquid breakfast?’ Megsy gestured to the tin hunt where the beer was always available and cold, despite the steaming heat and humidity. ‘The toffs can sod off and have their cooked breakfast.’

  The voice from behind them was quiet. ‘It’s necessary, Megsy.’

  ‘Oh, sorry, Sarge, I thought you’d gone with ’em.’ Megsy jerked his head back to the hut.

  The tall man standing at the door shook his head. ‘The rank of sergeant is non-commissioned, and we don’t mix with the officers either.’

  ‘So why do you say it’s necessary?’ Megsy’s temper matched his hair and it looked like he wasn’t going to let the matter go. ‘Bloody stupid if you ask me.’

  ‘I’m with Megsy here.’ Jack held Sarge’s eye. ‘We’re all fighting the Japs together.’

  The sergeant shook his head. ‘You’ll soon learn, boys.’

  ‘Boys!’ Megsy squawked in protest.

  ‘Yes. Boys.’ The older man’s eyes were distant, and Jack listened with interest. ‘Old soldiers know that fraternising with the officers jeopardises the discipline and respect required within an armed force. You’ll learn that very quickly.’

  Megsy put his head down, suitably chastened. ‘Want to come and have a beer with us, Sarge?’

  ‘No thanks. I’ve got work to do.’

  ‘Count me out too, Megsy,’ Jack said. ‘I think I’ll go for a walk down to the village for a while.’

  Megsy scratched his chin as he yawned. His ginger whiskers blended into his sunburned skin. ‘You okay, Jack?’

  Jack shrugged. ‘Yeah. You?’

  ‘Sick of this bloody heat.’ Megsy’s fair skin was burned raw from the tropical sun, and blisters covered his shoulders. ‘Okay, I won’t drink by myself. I’ll go and write to the missus. Tell her that life is bloody wonderful here in the air force. Getting myself a tan too.’

  Jack walked beside Megsy as far as the hut they shared. ‘It’s too bloody hot in that tin shed. I’ll see you later.’

  ‘Not much better outside,’ Megsy said. ‘Watch out for those native girls. I think they fancy a fine-looking bloke like you.’

  ‘I’ve been teaching the little kids how to play cricket.’

  ‘I miss my young blokes.’

  ‘You’ve got kids?’ Jack stopped in surprise and looked at Megsy. ‘You never said.’

  ‘Yeah, five and two. I miss them like crazy.’

  ‘I’ll bet.’ Jack was surprised. He’d thought Megsy a bit of a lad rather than a family man.

  ‘I hated leaving them and the missus, but you know what it’s like. Why we’re all here. Make the country a safe
place for them to grow up.’

  ‘Yeah. I know.’ Jack’s voice was quiet as he looked past Megsy.

  Megsy gave him a nod. ‘You’re a good bloke, Jack.’

  ‘Fills in the days,’ Jack replied.

  ‘See ya, mate.’

  Playing cricket with the small boys from the village gave Jack’s life a semblance of normality, between sleeping in a tin hut and spending monotonous hours in a metal tube in the air. The downtime between missions was hard to take, and the apprehension that gripped him before each take off had made him physically ill a couple of times. Most of the crew spent the long hours between missions sleeping or writing to their families, but Jack hadn’t been able to write home. The longer he’d left it, the harder it became. His father was in the wrong, and he’d be blowed if he was going to make the first move. Guilt nagged at him because he knew his mother would be sick with worry, but if he wrote to her, she’d show the letter to Dad.

  Rather than staying in the galvanised iron huts under Ack Ack Hill, Jack had also volunteered to help the ground crews and spent some of his days scraping the hulls of the last couple of Cats waiting to be painted black. When the metal was too hot to work on, that’s when he’d wander down the road to the village to play with the kids. But now those Cats had been destroyed, cricket was his only option.

  A couple of times, Jack had thought of writing to Liliana but there was nothing he could talk about. Any mention of missions or locations was taboo. Still, he couldn’t stop thinking about her.

  When the creeping fear took hold and claustrophobia threatened as the Cat flew the long hours over the sea, he would close his eyes briefly and imagine the blue waters around the Ellis home, and the lush green forests on the mountain behind their house. The silence was broken only by the soughing of the wind in the top of the hoop pines. The island was as close to perfection as he’d ever seen. But if he was honest, Jack knew it was Liliana he wanted to see again more than a timbered island with a few goats running on it, no matter how scenic and peaceful it was. Since the launch had steamed towards Bowen on that balmy evening when he’d left her, it had been hard to forget those pretty eyes and gentle expression. In those days on Whitsunday Island, he’d been able to kid himself that there was no war.

  It hadn’t lasted long. The fear had returned and worsened by the day until he thought he was going mad. The other airmen were quiet, but they didn’t seem to have the fear that filled him, so Jack never talked about how he felt.

  One more mission, that’s all he had to survive, and they’d be going south. The fear sat in his gut like the small coconut he was using for the cricket game with the laughing children.

  One more mission out of Moresby.

  CHAPTER

  17

  Jack was in the bunk compartment of the Cat, looking down through the starboard wheel observation window with his forehead resting against the cold metal. They’d dropped enough bombs on the Japanese ships near Salamaua to slow down the advance of the navy.

  Every time the Cat shuddered in the ever-present turbulence of the tropics, he grabbed for the log book as it slid along the cold metal floor beside his head. Jack swore as he bumped his infected elbow against the metal shelf at his side as he secured the log book. His attention was on the ocean below them as occasional wisps of cloud were touched by the rising sun. Coming home in daylight had the crew on tenterhooks; the Cats were painted black to avoid detection at night and the morning return was fraught with tension. As Jack leaned forward, a glint of silver flashed below. His blood ran cold, and he picked up the radio handset as he pressed his eye against the small observation window.

  ‘Captain Munford!’ Jack’s voice was low and urgent as the two red circles confirmed his worst fear.

  ‘Rickard?’ It was hard to hear the captain’s response over the roar of the engines as they headed for base, even though the captain was only a couple of metres away in the cockpit.

  ‘We’ve got a Zero at five o’clock, sir.’

  ‘Shit.’

  The engines roared as their air speed increased almost instantly. Captain Munford was pushing the cumbersome aircraft as hard as he could. Jack knew that their slow speed and lack of manoeuvrability would turn them into a sitting duck. Bile rose to his throat and he clenched his fingers as he leaned forward, watching as the fighter plane levelled out beneath them and then disappeared. He held his breath and waited for the fuselage to rip as bullets tore through the metal.

  The minutes passed slowly, and the compartment shook as the captain increased their air speed to the maximum. Jack’s ears buzzed with the roar of the engines. Megsy clambered over the low divider between the radio room and the bunk compartment and dropped to his haunches, peering through the port observation window. He tapped Jack’s leg and when Jack looked up, Megsy shook his head. ‘Can’t see the blighter this side,’ he yelled. ‘You?’

  ‘No. I think he’s gone behind us.’

  They peered below and waited.

  But the Zero with the distinctive red circle on each wing didn’t reappear. Once they reached the Owen Stanley Range just north of Port Moresby, Jack stared down into jungle-clad mountains. The low morning clouds hovered over the razorback ridges of the mountain chain, and he stared, waiting for the silver fighter to burst clear of the mist. His eyes burned with the strain and he blinked as two red circles appeared beneath him. He blinked and looked again but there was nothing there. They began to descend as the water of the harbour glinted to the south. He counted down in his head as the air speed dropped and the Black Cat lost height.

  The eight crew members were subdued as they landed in the harbour with a wash of spray, knowing how close they’d come to being shot down. The Cat taxied through the choppy waves to the personnel barge that was waiting to ferry them to the shore. Captain Munford waited for Jack to clamber from the fuselage and jump onto the boat.

  ‘Well spotted, Rickard. Sighting that bastard when you did probably saved us.’

  Jack held it together as they headed for the small wooden jetty adjacent to the base. They disembarked and he hurried up the hill, managing to get around to the back of the first hut before he leaned over and vomited. His knees were shaking as he straightened and pulled a rag from his back pocket and wiped the sweat from his face.

  As the Cat was refuelled, Jack and Megsy grabbed their bags. He didn’t look back at Ack Ack Hill as they headed to the harbour for the flight to Bowen.

  * * *

  14 May, 1942

  Jack sat on the step at the back of the boarding house, smoking his second cigarette of the morning. Their aircraft was up on the hard stand and they hadn’t flown a mission since coming back from Moresby a week earlier. The view from the top of Bowen Hill was depressing. The coal mines in the distance were as ugly as those at home in the Hunter Valley and to the south were the flat salt pans. Although some of the airmen had raved about the pastel swirling colours, it wasn’t to be compared with the beauty he’d seen on Whitsunday Island.

  Adjacent to the salt pans was the salt works, and to the north, an overgrown lagoon. The smell of the stagnant water drifted up as soon as the sun set each evening, along with the mosquitoes. Jack lit a third cigarette and ignored the now cold mug of tea that he’d collected from the kitchen on his way outside. He didn’t care how boring it was here in Bowen, at least back on Australian soil the constant fear that had dogged him in Port Moresby had gone. Even though they had lost two Cats and both crews in the battle dubbed ‘Coral Sea’ the week the squadrons had moved to Bowen, being here, and close to the islands was much safer than being on the base at Port Moresby.

  He tipped the tea onto the parched ground next to the back steps, then washed and shaved in preparation for the squadron morning muster. He quickly tidied the small space that served as his bedroom in the house where he was kipping with Roger and Charlie. Most of the squadron officers and ground crews were accommodated in various hotels, private houses and shops in the main streets of Bowen, and when Roger and
Charlie had heard Jack’s squadron was coming back, they’d found a place for him at their boarding house.

  He smoothed down his uniform as he let himself out the front door. ‘Bye, Mrs Atkins.’

  The landlady was kneeling in the middle of the large vegetable patch that had replaced the front lawn. She’d taken great pride in telling him about her Victory Garden when he’d arrived yesterday. The tomatoes were looking sad, no wonder in this dry heat, but Jack kept his voice cheery as he walked past. ‘No need for breakfast today. I’ll have it down town.’

  Many of the local men had volunteered and gone away to war. Those who remained struggled to maintain the crops and orchards. It was not uncommon to see a vegetable field with all women picking the crops. He wondered whether it was like that at home now. The grape harvest would be done for the year … he pushed away the thought of home. When the war was over, maybe he’d find somewhere else to establish his own vineyard, unless Dad was prepared to change his mind. Maybe he’d buy some land up here and grow tropical fruits.

  Jack whistled as he crossed Powell Street, where the Denison Hotel served as squadron headquarters and officers’ accommodation. The operational base unit had been established in the town to undertake administration and maintenance of the base. It was so different to the tin huts and the jungle encroaching on the base up at Moresby.

  The local picture theatre had been converted to a maintenance workshop. An airmen’s mess, station headquarters, and station store and guard room had taken over the adjacent shops, the locals being more than happy to help with supporting the war effort. Houses along Dalrymple and George Streets became airmen’s barracks and elsewhere in the town, more private houses were converted into a hospital and dental clinic for the servicemen, as well as general equipment stores. It was an air force community already, and the town had a welcoming feel to it, but the first chance he had, Jack intended going back to Whitsunday Island.