by Annie Seaton
‘Greed can be a strong motivator,’ Liv said as she stepped down and settled on the front seat. He swung himself down to the boat and started the motor.
‘We could go ashore here, but I want to go out through the bay and see if the two boats that were there have gone.’
The motor puttered as he steered them across the first semi-enclosed bay. Fynn nodded with satisfaction as they entered the wider bay of Gulnare Inlet. There were no boats there.
The tide was ebbing now, but the wind was with them as they left the inlet and motored along, close to the shore. As they reached the rocky headland, he turned the boat into the beach on the other side. Liv watched as he tucked a parcel inside his shirt and stepped into the knee-deep water.
‘No Irukandji here?’ Her grin was cheeky.
‘Not this time of the year. Would you like me to lift you out?’
She waved a dismissive hand. ‘I’ll be fine, thank you, captain.’
‘This is Sawmill Beach.’ He pointed to the southern end. ‘Just on the edge of the beach there, you can see the pylons of an old jetty. It was where the Ellises used to moor their boats. Aunty Tat grew up in a house up on the hill.’
The pathway was overgrown. It was years since he’d been here with Byron but Fynn was hoping the old shed was still there. They reached the clearing at the top of the path and he pointed to the top. ‘There’s your two hills from a different vantage point.’
Liv frowned and shook her head. ‘I must have seen them on TV.’
Fynn strode over to the old stone shed near the ruins of the house. ‘This was where they used to keep their food cold. I thought it would still be standing.’ Only a few stumps of the house remained, and a few fence posts showed where the house yard once ended.
‘It’s so sad, isn’t it?’ Liv walked along behind him. ‘To think a family once lived here. And now this is all that’s left. Ruins and Aunty Tat’s memories.’ She turned to look at the water. ‘What a beautiful view to look at each day. I’d never get sick of it.’
Fynn pushed open the door of the old shed. Liv went to follow him but stopped in the doorway. ‘Ergh. Too many cobwebs! What are you doing anyway?’
‘It might be overkill, but if anyone comes looking for your computer, we can safely hand it over.’ He pulled the waterproof bag from inside his shirt and held it up. ‘I’m going to put the external drive in here. We’ll leave it here for as long as needed. I’m sure it will be quite secure.’
‘Seeing you’ve backed it up, what do you think of me calling my father and saying I am going to send the computer back? Maybe that would stop whoever it is trying to get it.’
‘I think that’s a good idea. We’ll stay here for a couple of days and then go around to Hamo. I’ve got a sat phone on board and I’ll call Jill later to see how Greg is, but I don’t want to give Sheridan Corp any idea of where you are.’
‘Sounds good to me.’
As they walked down towards the boat, Fynn reached for her hand.
Slowly. Slowly.
CHAPTER
29
July 16, 1942
High-tailed and wide-winged, Catalinas flew roughly at the same slow speed as they climbed and landed. Jack lay back in the passage next to the blister turret trying to sleep, but the thoughts whirling through his head kept him awake. They had finished their run and Dumbo was making the slow and ponderous journey back to Bowen. That night, they had covered a cruiser and two Japanese destroyers, and dropped flame floats at the bow of the cruiser.
‘Take that, ya bastard.’ Megsy and Jack had grinned at each other as Eric, the LAC manning the turret, had dropped the first flame float. As they peered down, the fluorescence from the float lit up the wake from the churning propellers in the sea beneath them. Their job was done. They’d located the Japanese naval vessels by a square search plotted by Jack that night and made the cruiser a ready target for the Liberator bombers not far behind Dumbo.
The sporadic anti-aircraft fire from the destroyers hadn’t reached them, and Jack knew it was a miracle that there’d been no Japanese fighters in the vicinity. Armed only with the .30 calibre machine guns, they had no chance against the speedy Zeros. Since January, the Nips had taken Rabaul, New Britain and New Ireland and those locations had now become the main targets for Squadrons 11 and 20 out of Bowen.
Megsy had tapped his shoulder about an hour ago as they had reached the point of no return and turned back to base. ‘I’ll take over watch while you get some shut-eye, mate.’
‘Thanks, Megs.’
Usually, once they were on the way home, Jack’s anxiety faded as he focused on his responsibilities; plotting the drop zone, and recording accurate and detailed records of the flight and knowing the danger was behind them, and he had survived another mission. But he couldn’t settle tonight. His thoughts were full of Liliana and the guilt he’d carried since he’d left her at the island.
He loved her, but Jack knew he should have resisted the temptation in the cave. It hadn’t been the right thing to do, no matter how willing she had been. Worrying about the consequences, he’d set aside some money and a letter for Liliana, leaving it in a prominent position on the bureau in his room at Mrs Atkins’ house.
He remembered how he’d once reassured her that his brief was reconnaissance and transport. If he’d told her the truth about shadowing the Japanese fleet and timing mine releases on mine-lay runs, it would have worried her so much, knowing how close the Nips were getting to the mainland of Australia.
Wing Commander Butler had called the squadron crews into the briefing room yesterday, not long after they had disembarked from the steamer bringing them back to base from Whitsunday Island. The wing commander’s voice was more sombre than usual. ‘The war in the south-west Pacific is intensifying. All leave has been cancelled for now. You’ll be going out more frequently, men, as we try to locate the Japanese fleet in the Coral Sea.’
As soon as he got his next leave—and that looked as though it could be a long time away—he would go down to the island. Why wait until the war was over to get married? The way the Japs were taking over the Pacific, the war could go on for years, and Jack’s fear that he wouldn’t survive was with him constantly. As soon as he could, he would speak to Boyd. Lily would be seventeen at the end of July, and he could promise her a good life wherever they chose to settle.
Coming to a decision eased his anxiety, and Jack pulled down his jacket and rolled it beneath his head as he yawned.
‘Wake up, mate.’
Jack pushed himself out of a restless sleep as Megsy shook him. He frowned as he sat up and rubbed his eyes; the note of the engines was different. ‘Are we landing already?’
Megsy’s voice was flat. ‘Yeah, we’re stopping at Horn Island to refuel. We have to go back out to the Palau Islands.’
‘What for?’ Jack asked.
‘Don’t know. Captain said he’d fill us in when we got there.’
‘Damn. The Japs will be active once the Liberators finish that bombing run, and it’s getting light.’
‘I know. I don’t like the feel of this.’ Megsy pulled a small dogeared photo from his shirt pocket and stared at it.
‘What’s that you’ve got there?’ Jack leaned forward in the dim light.
‘My boys.’ Megsy handed the photo over and Jack stared at the photograph for a moment before passing it back. Two rosy-cheeked children, a toddler and a baby, smiled at the camera.
‘It makes you think about why we’re up here, doesn’t it?’ Jack said.
‘It does. It’s worth it. Every minute of it. And we just have to keep the faith we’ll survive.’ Megsy put the photo carefully back into his pocket and buttoned it up.
The two men exchanged a long look, no more words were necessary. They both knew how many of the Cats had been shot down over the past month.
As they got closer to their destination, Dumbo descended, and Jack knew something was happening, as for the last two and a half hours they had flown only fifty
feet above the sea. They were so low, the moonlight flashing off the waves had an almost hypnotic effect on him as he stared down through the observation window. He prayed that whichever of the three pilots was in charge of the cockpit knew what he was doing. A short while later, Captain Munford climbed over the metal barrier to the turret and squatted beside them.
‘How’s it going back here, men?’ His voice was jovial but there was no accompanying smile.
‘Good, sir.’ Megsy gestured to the sea not far below them. ‘What’s going on?’
‘Jack, I want you to work out exactly how much fuel we need to get back to Horn Island—the absolute bare minimum. We’ve got a big payload to pick up on Peleliu Island and we need to be as light as we possibly can.’
‘Payload, sir?’ Jack asked.
‘Eight men to pick up. It’s going to be a crowded and uncomfortable trip home,’ Captain Munford said. ‘I’ll be taking the controls for take off. We need to jettison as much as we can, and quickly. Fuel and ammunition to counter balance the extra weight we’ll be taking on.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Let me know as soon as you do the calculation.’ The captain stood and lowered his head as he ducked beneath the bulkhead. ‘We’re about ten minutes from landing.’
Jack opened the log book and turned to a blank page, working out distances and fuel calculations. By the time he had the required figure, the note of the engine changed as the pilot throttled back. He walked past the radio operator and up to the lower cockpit.
‘Done, cap—’
The urgent voice of the other observer interrupted him. ‘Captain! There’s a Jap sub lying broadside in the middle of the bay. Straight in the middle of our landing run. Abort?’
‘No. We’ll stall her and drop.’ Captain Munford’s voice stayed calm despite the tension in the cockpit. Jack didn’t look down as he stood waiting. Ice filled his veins as he waited. The pilot’s hands were white on the controls.
‘How much can I jettison, Jack?’ The captain turned to him.
Jack quickly gave the figures to the captain as the other pilot brought Dumbo in low over the submarine, stalled the engine and dropped down in a whirl of spray. Jack reached for the metal wall and hung on as the flying boat bobbed to a stop on the choppy water. Ahead were two dinghies, each carrying four men.
‘Get that anchor out,’ the captain said quietly. ‘Otherwise those poor buggers’ll have no chance against the slipstream. And worse still, the Nips know they’re there waiting for us now. We have to move fast.’ His quiet and controlled instructions sent a measure of calm through the crew as each carried out his assigned tasks to secure the Cat. As they waited for the men to paddle alongside in the two dinghies, everyone was silent. The newcomers climbed into the Cat one by one. The men were told of the enemy nearby before the dinghies were slashed with a knife and allowed to sink.
‘Cut the anchor line too,’ Captain Munford commanded as he took over the controls in the cockpit. ‘We don’t have time to pull it up. Everything unnecessary, ditch it now, over the side.’
The engines roared and the Cat taxied away from the submarine. The bunk area and the blister compartments were crowded with the extra men and Jack stayed in the cockpit. He would go back to his observation post once they were airborne.
If they could get airborne with all that weight.
The sky was bright pink as the sun cleared the horizon and Jack swallowed as the top of the submarine glinted in the early morning sunlight. His stomach was roiling and bile touched the base of his throat. The engines thundered as the overloaded flying boat strained desperately, trying to clear the water.
‘A few degrees to port.’ Jack was close enough to hear the captain’s quiet order.
The control column was hard back, and the captain gunned the engine to full throttle in an attempt to get the nose up, but the weight on board was too heavy. ‘Get rid of some more fuel before I come around,’ he yelled this time. All Jack could think of was the submarine sending a torpedo in their direction.
Minutes later, they were off again at full throttle. Jack could hear the flight engineer pleading with the captain to reduce power because the engines were overheating. Jack kept his eyes on the dials that the flight engineer was staring at. The needles were well into the red; there was obviously a problem.
What would be the least painful way to die? A crash or a torpedo? All of the flight crew were white-faced and white-knuckled, but the captain kept going, and finally after a couple of tail clips and a final bump, the plane was airborne and he throttled back. The submarine below quickly became a speck in the distance as a cheer went up through the plane.
‘Thank you, gentlemen. It’s going to be a slow trip back to Horn to refuel. I’ll have to take it slow with such a low fuel load over the distance. Back to observation posts.’ Captain Munford dismissed them with a nod. ‘Extra vigilance as the enemy will certainly know where we are.’
Jack made his way to the blister turret. Three of the men they’d picked up were sitting silently, their backs against the metal wall. He nodded as he leaned down to the narrow observation window beside them. There was no point speaking with the roar of the engines in the confined space. The Cat banked as the captain took them lower over the island of Southern Peleliu.
Sitting on the narrow metal bench in the Black Cat, Jack froze as he peered down at the water below, always on the lookout for the small Zeros. The nightmare of the war returned in full force.
Silhouetted against the golden-red ball of sun that hovered over the eastern horizon, four Japanese Zeros dropped out of the red flame as they flew towards Dumbo in perfect formation.
Jack craned forward and caught a flash of dull green wings with red rising suns and the pilots in black helmets. Bullets ripped through the fuselage of the plane and horror filled Jack as a burst of blood sprayed from the man in the turret beside him. The aircraft slewed to one side as a burst of fire from the Zero tore the starboard engine apart, pieces of the engine exploding in a ball of flame. The captain struggled to keep control, but it was useless.
‘Grab something and hang on, boys. We’re going in.’
CHAPTER
30
July 18, 1942
Almost two months had passed since Jack’s last leave, and Lily became more listless every day. There was no word from Jack, and no smiling face greeting her on the launch as she waited for him to arrive each time the mail launch came in. No visits from anyone on the base, and to top it all off, there had been no newspapers on the mail launch for a few weeks.
On the morning of her seventeenth birthday, Lily waited on the jetty for the Catalina to return. As the sky lightened with the first pink flush of the autumn dawn on the third morning, she’d pulled on her shoes and run down to the jetty in her pyjamas. Three nights ago, when she had lain in bed the flying boat had roared over the island on its trip north into a danger that her imagination now imbued with all sorts of dreadful possibilities, she’d squeezed her eyes shut but still the tears had run down her cheeks. It had taken her till the early hours to fall asleep as she held Jack’s face in her thoughts, and worried about how he was feeling, what he was doing, and if he was safe.
‘No news is good news, Lil,’ Dad had reassured her yesterday. ‘If anything had happened, we would have heard about it down here.’
Last week the plane had roared over each night and returned each morning, but for three days, she had waited on the jetty, and for three mornings, the sky had been empty.
The occasional splash of fish breaking the silvery surface of the calm water was her only company this morning until Tatiana wandered down.
‘Happy birthday, Lil. Mama said to come up when you’re ready. She’s making fried bread, your favourite.’
‘Thank you.’ She held her cheek up for Tat’s kiss. ‘I’ll come up in a while.’
‘Good. I’ll have a quick dip.’
Even in July in the tropics, the mornings were warm, even though the grey sky was heavy
with threatening rain. Lily clenched her fingers as she strained to hear the distant roar of the engine as it approached the Passage.
Waiting. Waiting.
She counted slowly in her head, blocking out Tat’s incessant chatter as she dived off the jetty, swam around to the end, climbed out and then dived back in, bombarding Lily with questions that she couldn’t answer. Roger this, Charlie that. When were the boys going to come back and visit them?
Tat’s voice was like an incessant buzz in Lily’s head and she closed her eyes. The welcome splash as Tat dived off the jetty guaranteed at least one minute of silence as she swam around to the other side.
‘Do you think they’ll be here this weekend?’
Liliana jumped as Tat dropped water onto her face as she flicked her wet hair over her shoulder.
‘Oh for God’s sake, Tatiana, put a sock in it and bloody shut up.’
‘I’ll tell Mama you swore.’
‘I don’t care. Bloody grow up.’ Lily stood and slipped on her canvas sandshoes. The thought of Jack being caught somewhere out in the ocean, entombed in that metal tube, combined with the hot sun on her bare head was making her dizzy. She gagged and ran to the end of the jetty, holding her stomach as she leaned over the bush.
‘Oh, Lil. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.’ Tatiana caught up to her and put a gentle hand on her shoulder. ‘Here, take my towel and wipe your face.’
‘Thank you.’ Lily raised a shaking hand to her face. Her head was still spinning, and she was seeing stars. She’d sat out in the hot sun for too long.
Hot tears slipped from her eyes and she swiped at her cheeks with the towel. ‘I’m scared, Tat. I don’t know if they’ve come back. Where are they? Where’s Jack?’
Once she let the tears fall, they turned into sobs. Tat held her hand tightly as they made their way back up to the house as the sun climbed high and the water of the Passage shimmered.
Lily crawled further into her shell as the weeks passed. She didn’t know what was worse. Had Jack been killed? Or was he up in Bowen and had he just decided he didn’t want to visit anymore? It was her punishment for what she’d done with him in Goat’s cave on the night of the storm.