Whitsunday Dawn

by Annie Seaton

  ‘Hello, Mrs Ellis. It’s good to see you again. I hope it was all right for me to come back and stay in the hut again?’ Jack held out his hand and helped Mama step up onto the launch.

  ‘I’m very pleased that you wanted to come back to our island. But where are your two friends?’

  ‘Roger and Charlie are working at the harbour.’ Jack turned his head, and a lock of hair fell over his forehead. He lifted his hand and pushed it back. Lily stared at him, her legs all shaky as shyness flooded through her.

  Conscious of Tat’s glare as she stood beside the boxes of vegetables that had been unloaded from the launch, Lily straightened her shoulders. ‘Hello, Jack. Welcome back. It’s good to see you again.’

  ‘It’s really good to be back.’ His dark hair was glossy black and as he moved closer she could smell the mildly floral fragrance of Brylcreem. Clark Gable sprang to Lily’s mind, and she savoured the pleasant shiver that ran down her back when he smiled at her.

  The launch pulled out into the channel and Jack left his kit bag on the jetty and helped them carry some of the boxes up. Lily turned to Tat when they reached the house.

  ‘There’s still three more boxes down on the jetty. You start the kids on their lessons and Jack and I will get the rest. Where are the kids?’

  Tat shrugged and walked across to the kitchen window. ‘Out on the tree swing.’

  ‘It’s a wonder Billy hasn’t scampered already.’ Lily leaned across to the window and called out, ‘Come on, you lot. School’s on.’

  Jack and Lily took their time as they strolled back down to the jetty. It was so good to be with Jack again; it was as though he hadn’t been gone all those months.

  ‘I love being here.’ He held her gaze, but she looked down as her tummy fluttered. ‘Want to go for a walk later?’

  ‘That would be nice.’

  ‘I missed you, Liliana.’ As soon as they were out of sight of the house and the kids, Jack reached for her hand. Lily took it, and then slowed and looked at their joined hands.

  ‘It’s really good to see you again.’ Jack squeezed her fingers gently. Her shyness disappeared, and she grinned back.

  ‘I’m so pleased you’ve come back too. How about … how about I show you the butterfly glade later?’ It was going against all of Mama’s instructions about being alone with Jack, but all at once, she didn’t care. She was sixteen years old—almost seventeen—and it wasn’t as though he was a stranger.

  ‘The butterfly glade?’ His voice was soft and he moved a little bit closer to her. ‘I’d like that.’

  * * *

  The boxes were stowed in the pantry, and while Tat unpacked the vegetables, Lily cooked a batch of biscuits before she made the sandwiches for lunch. As they ate their sandwiches, the twins bombarded Jack with questions and Lily took the opportunity to quickly read Amelia’s letter.

  It was a long letter, Amelia’s small perfectly formed words filling six pages. Lily smiled and lifted the pages to her nose and sniffed them. Lavender perfumed. The first page of the letter was bright and chatty, and full of news about the work in the café and how much Amelia was enjoying it.

  That wasn’t what she was looking for. Lily flicked over the pages and scanned the neat writing. Amelia wrote she’d heard from some of the other girls but there was no mention of working with Peggy. Lily held her breath as she scanned the small writing and flicked through the pages until she came to the words she was looking for.

  All is well with me. It was a false alarm. I think I had myself so worried, my monthlies stayed away. I really thought I’d done my dash and was going to be an unmarried mother. I have never been so terrified in my life. Can you imagine my joy when I went to the WC at the café and I had them, Lily! I was checking my undies every hour on the hour for days and days. Even the ladies in the café were worried about me, I had to tell them I’d eaten something and I had the runs. They wouldn’t let me near the food so I was on wash-up duty for ages.

  Oh, Lil, you just can’t imagine the relief I felt when I finally got them, but trust me I have been smiling for three weeks now. Never ever again will I ever, ever put myself through that! No more soldiers in my life. Ever!

  I do have some other news though and it’s not so good.

  Peggy was not so lucky. I didn’t even know that she’d missed her monthlies for three months. My God, Lil. She is having a baby and she doesn’t even know who the father is. Her parents came to Brisbane and collected her, and the day poor Peg left the café, she told me they went up to the convent and blasted poor Mother Vincent Reilly to Kingdom come.

  I am so glad we have all left that awful place even though gadding about the city at night with you was fun, and it did get me this job. I miss you and I hope you are happy back on your island and reading lots of those books you love. Please come and see me when the war is over, and I so hope you come back to Brisbane to study like I know you always wanted to. You are smart enough to be whatever you want, Lil.

  Be good ... although I suppose you get no chance to be anything else in your tropical paradise. Love from a very, very, very well-behaved Amelia.

  Lily shook her head and let out the breath she’d been holding. At least that was one less thing to worry about. All she needed now was for Mama and Dad to come home with a newspaper saying that the war was over, and she could stop worrying.

  But, oh, poor Peggy. Even if Peggy had been unkind to her and her teasing had often been nasty, Lily didn’t wish her any ill feeling. Especially not the predicament Peg had gotten herself into.

  ‘Lil? Do we have to do more school work?’ Billy’s voice was hopeful.

  She folded the letter and propped it against a pot of herbs on the windowsill. Later on, she’d find a good hidey hole for it in her room. Or safer still, once she’d written down Amelia’s address, it could go in the stove fire.

  ‘Just finish your maps and then you can go and play on the verandah for a while before Mama and Daddy come home.’ Lily walked over to the table and took the pencil that Billy was chewing from his mouth. Pulling out the chair on the other side of Billy, she glanced across the table. Jack and Robbie had their heads together as Robbie traced around the Gulf of Carpentaria.

  ‘You’ll get lead poisoning.’ Lily shivered as he put the pencil down. Ragged bits of wood exposed the single line of lead where Billy had chewed around it. ‘Ugh, that’s awful. Where’s your map, Billy?’

  He lifted his book and pulled out a tattered, folded map and Lily shook her head as she pointed to the border between Queensland and the southern states.

  ‘Okay, you’re at sixes and sevens. Sydney is the capital of—?’

  ‘New South Wales,’ Robbie piped up and Billy picked up the pencil and threw it at him.

  ‘You don’t have to show off in front of Jack,’ he cried.

  ‘Manners, Billy.’

  Lily looked down at the tattered map and smiled. Robbie’s work was always neat, and Billy rushed his. Next to the map of Queensland, he’d drawn a map of their island and she nodded.

  ‘That’s a pretty good map of our island,’ she said with a smile. ‘Although I don’t ever recall seeing a pirate ship up near Turtle Rock when we’ve been fishing.’

  ‘Of course you haven’t.’ His voice was smug, and his little chest puffed with importance. ‘The pirates only come at night and bury their treasure in Turtle Cave. Maybe I could take Jack there and show him.’ He shot a tentative smile at Jack, who was fast becoming a hero to the twins. Before Lily could look away, he lifted his head and caught her staring at him. He held her gaze and a gentle smile lifted his lips.

  Doing school work with the children had all of a sudden turned into a pleasant task.

  ‘You know you’re not allowed to go there.’ Liliana wagged her finger at her small brother and he scrunched his nose up.

  ‘One day soon, I will. And you’ll be sorry when I don’t give you the jewels that the pirates will bury there.’

  ‘I don’t want jewels.’ She couldn�
�t help the retort but smiled when she saw Jack’s grin.

  After a few minutes of working quietly while Tat banged about in the pantry, Jack stood up and brought his chair around next to Lily’s.

  ‘Look, this is what I was showing Robbie on this map.’ He sat on the chair and his leg brushed against Lily’s bare knees beneath the table. Warmth shot through her and she lowered her eyes, hoping her face wasn’t as rosy as it felt.

  ‘All right, kids. You’ve been really good.’ Reluctantly, she moved her leg away from Jack’s knee and took a breath. ‘Jack and I are going for a walk.’

  ‘I’m coming too.’ Tat came out from the pantry wiping her hands on her shorts.

  Lily shook her head. ‘You have to stay here with the kids. Mama put me in charge, remember?’

  Tatiana’s glare followed them down the steps.

  ‘Okay, show me this butterfly place.’ Jack’s voice was carefree and his laughter followed Lily as she ran into the bush a few hundred yards up past the house. It was mid-afternoon and a breeze had whipped up. A gust ricocheted off the mountain with a crack and Jack’s head flew up. A branch fell in the bush in front of them with a loud crack.

  Suddenly, the tenor of his voice changed. ‘Stop! Wait. Don’t go any further.’

  The seriousness of his cry stopped her, and Lily waited for him to catch up to her.

  ‘What was that?’ He led her off the log, looking around into the dark bush surrounding them.

  ‘It’s okay. It was only a bullet.’

  ‘A bullet?’ Jack pulled her close to him and pressed her back against a wide tree. His heart was pounding hard and Lily could feel it against the bare skin above the neckline of her shirt.

  ‘Not a real bullet. Just what we call a bullet. It’s when the wind comes roaring from nowhere. When you sail in our islands, you have to be wary of them.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ Jack looked up at the still branches above them. ‘There’s no wind now.’

  ‘Bullets are pretty unique to our islands. The high hills and the winds combine, and they just come out of nowhere. It happens when—’ Lily cut off the words that were on the tip of her tongue, an explanation about air temperature she’d learned in science. She didn’t want to sound like a scientific know-it-all. ‘This bay is one of the worst. If you want to know why it happens, ask Dad.’

  ‘I will. Especially if our aircraft are going to fly down this way when they take off and land.’

  Lily’s happiness fled. Her excitement about being alone with Jack had chased away the reason for them coming down here in the first place.

  ‘How far away is this glade?’

  ‘About half a mile along the shore.’

  ‘Maybe we should stay closer to the house.’ Jack put his head down and rubbed the back of his neck.

  ‘Why? What’s the matter?’ she said.

  ‘I just don’t know how safe it is for you—for us—to be wandering around the island.’

  ‘For heaven’s sake!’ She shook her head. ‘Why not? We’ve done it all our lives.’

  Jack took a deep breath. ‘But it’s wartime now.’

  Fear curled in Lily’s stomach as he stared at her and she knew he was serious. ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘Nothing. I just don’t think it’s very safe to be wandering around. A young woman by herself.’

  ‘But you’re with me.’

  CHAPTER

  19

  Liliana’s eyes were wide as she stared up at Jack. He took both of her hands in his and held them close to his chest.

  ‘But I won’t always be with you. Promise me you won’t climb the peak again. Promise me, Liliana, please.’

  ‘You’re scaring me, Jack.’

  ‘I don’t want you to be scared, maybe just be a little bit more careful than usual.’ He dropped her hands and slipped his arms around her waist. She stood still in his hold.

  ‘Is this okay? If I hold you for a minute?’

  Lily dropped her head and rested it on his shoulder. ‘It’s nice.’

  They stood listening to the sounds of the bush as the wind rustled through the high branches. Serenity flooded through Jack; if only he could feel like this all the time. After a moment, he pulled back and smiled down at her. ‘I don’t want to rush you, Liliana. I know I’ve only known you for a really short time, but I want you to know how I feel about you. I couldn’t wait to get back down here and see you again.’

  She lifted her arms and looped them around his shoulders.

  ‘I know,’ she whispered. ‘I’ve thought about you a lot too since you left.’

  ‘When I was up in the Cat and feeling scared, I thought about you and it made it a lot easier,’ he said softly. ‘You’re my lucky charm.’

  ‘Oh, Jack. Why does there have to be a war? Why couldn’t things stay the same as they were? I hate it!’

  ‘I can’t answer any of those questions. But if there wasn’t a war, I wouldn’t be up here, and I wouldn’t have met you.’ He stepped back from her, gently lifting her hands away from his shoulders but he kept one of her hands in his. ‘Come on, show me your glade and then we’d better go back to the house.’

  She nodded and pointed to the track in front of them. ‘It’s just over there. We follow that track and it comes back around to a small rocky bay along the shore.’

  ‘Nowhere near the path to the peak?’

  ‘Why are you so worried about the mountain?’

  Jack swallowed, remembering the instructions of the wing commander not to share anything off base. He’d already scared her, but he wanted to be sure she and the family stayed safe.

  ‘If I tell you something, will you promise not to tell anyone? I’m not supposed to share anything we get told on base.’

  She nodded silently.

  He hesitated and then said, ‘There’s been some talk that the Japanese have infiltrated some of the islands and they are using the high points to keep an eye on our naval shipping.’

  ‘The high points? So, you mean that they … that the Japanese could even be up on our peak? On our island?’

  ‘Maybe. I don’t know for sure. Just be careful. Stay away from there.’

  ‘Daddy heard that ages ago, but he said it wasn’t true.’ Her eyes were wide and Jack regretted saying anything, but he was pleased that Boyd had already mentioned it. ‘Just don’t say anything, okay.’

  ‘I promise.’

  * * *

  All thoughts of the Japanese infiltrating their island fled from Lily’s mind when they reached the glade. Jack sat close to her on an old hessian sack on the sand behind the beach. The vertical rock wall against their backs was still warm from the morning sun, and Sawmill Bay shimmered like a silver mirror. As they sat there, they spoke in quiet whispers as the soft dappled light filtered through the lacy foliage above. Jack drew in a breath as the first delicate black butterflies fluttered out of the forest at the end of the clearing.

  ‘Amazing,’ he said.

  She put her finger to her lips and whispered, ‘Wait. It gets better.’

  Jack’s leg rested against hers as they waited and watched. Within moments, they were surrounded by hundreds of butterflies. She closed her eyes as Jack’s warm breath puffed across her cheek, shivering as his lips pressed against her ear.

  ‘You have two butterflies sitting on top of your head,’ he murmured.

  ‘That’s supposed to be good luck.’ She stayed perfectly still as Jack’s lips moved from her ear to her cheek, and moved softly down and across to her lips. He tilted his head a little to one side and his lips brushed the edge of her mouth. Liliana smiled as the gentle pressure on her lips increased and her stomach fluttered like the butterflies that were around them.

  She turned her head to give Jack full access to her mouth, and he lifted his arm and put it around her shoulders, turning her slightly so that she was facing him. Her pulse raced as his lips took hers, and she let out a little sigh. Jack’s lips were soft as they clung to hers. When his lips finally slid f
rom her mouth and stopped on the soft spot beneath her ear, little flashes of heat tingled all over her skin.

  A grown-up kiss, like Rhett Butler and Scarlett would have shared.

  The sun dropped lower in the sky and the darkness of the bush that had been part of her life for almost seventeen years took on a sinister quality. Lily jumped when a branch dropped from a tree and the leaves crackled underfoot. As a bird was disturbed, it cried and the noise echoed through the now still night air. As Jack’s words about the Japanese came back to her, the launch’s horn blared across the Passage and she jumped up. ‘Quick, that’s the launch heading for the bay.’

  Jack’s hand held hers firmly as they walked along the narrow path to the jetty to meet the launch.

  He stopped as they approached the jetty and pointed to the water. Little shimmers of light flickered as the water pushed in. ‘What’s that?’

  ‘I always thought it was something magical until we learned about it in science at school last year. I’d never tell the boys and Katarina what it really is. They think it’s the fairies in my stories.’ A gust of wind blew her hair across her face. ‘It’s phosphorescent algae, but whatever the cause, it’s still beautiful.’

  ‘It is.’ Jack’s voice was a low murmur and a delicious shiver ran down Liliana’s spine as he reached up and tucked the loose strand of hair behind her ear. He moved closer and his breath was warm. ‘And so are you, Liliana.’ He placed a gentle kiss on her cheek.

  She put a hand to her face and moved away from him. She knew if she got closer she would want his lips on hers again.

  ‘Find a stick. Quickly!’ she managed to say as she moved away from him.

  She turned and held her hand out to him. ‘When I get to the end of the log, hold onto me so I don’t fall into the water.’

  She stepped up onto the log and tiptoed to the end of it with Jack following close behind. ‘Okay.’ When she stopped his hands went to her waist and held her firmly. It was easy to balance with him holding her although her breath quickened as his figures pressed into the skin just below her breasts. Goosebumps rose on her arms and the strange quiver that seemed to be in her tummy all of the time now moved lower. She leaned forward and tipped the end of the long stick into the water.