by Anne Connor
‘I don’t know,’ said Dawn.
‘Is she on the ship?’
‘No, she cleared off months ago.’
‘Did your Daddy bring you to the ship?’
‘No, we don’t know where he is either.’
Peggy looked up at her mother. Dorothy looked down at her daughter’s clean face and shiny hair.
‘Well, who looks after you?’
‘I do,’ said Dawn. ‘And sometimes we go over to Mrs Hudson’s.’
‘Is Mrs Hudson on this ship?’
‘I haven’t seen her. I don’t know where she is.’ Tears formed in the girl’s eyes. ‘Soldiers came around early this morning and told us to get in the truck. They said the yellow peril was coming and they’d torture and kill us and we had to get on the ship.’
Japanese women and children who had been living in Darwin were put into the hold with the Japanese internees and forbidden to mix with Anglos. They were locked away except for supervised trips for fresh air. On day two, when the soldiers herded the Japanese women and children onto the deck for their dose of sunlight, Peggy saw her school friend Yuki walking, head downcast, behind her mother.
‘Yuki, Yuki, it’s me, Peggy.’
The Japanese girl lifted her head, smiled and waved.
‘I’m glad you’re here,’ said Peggy and tried to run to her friend. She was stopped by a guard holding a gun across his chest. It was the one who had tossed the contents of her satchel into the water. Dorothy learned his name was O’Reilly.
‘You can’t mix with the prisoners. These Japs could be spies.’
Peggy looked up at the soldier. ‘Yuki’s not a spy. She’s my friend.
We sit together at school.’
The little girl tried to step around the provost, and he moved in the same direction, blocking her path. She stepped to the other side. The soldier did the same. Peggy looked up at the guard and poked her tongue out. He pushed her on the shoulder. ‘Move back to where you were and stay away from the prisoners.’
She ran back to where her mother was standing with the other women and buried her head into Dorothy’s chest. ‘Why is Yuki and her family prisoners Mum? They’re not spies.’
Dorothy placed an arm around Peggy and said under her breath, ‘You’ll keep, O’Reilly, you’ll keep.’
That night, Dorothy soaked the hard biscuits in lukewarm tea to soften them for Peggy, Dawn and her brothers to eat. Harry and Peggy were about the same age and the next day they took Reg with them and played with the other children on the ship.
Dorothy held Ed on her lap as she sat on the deck and the women made themselves comfortable. They upturned wooden crates and used them as seats. Many women had children a similar age to Ed and the little ones played together in the safety of the women who were always close by.
Dawn was never too far away and Dorothy felt the girl enjoyed relying on a responsible adult. While they cleaned the cabin together, Dawn told her how both her parents had spent their waking hours drinking and fighting until they passed out, only to start again the next day.
‘I’ve been looking after the boys for as long as I can remember,’ she said. ‘Being on this ship is easier for me than at home. We are being looked after here. I don’t want us to get off,’ she said and began to cry. ‘I don’t know where we’ll go or what we’ll do.’
‘It’s okay, love. You don’t have to make that decision yet,’ said Dorothy, not knowing herself what the future would hold.
Dorothy dreaded the nights. No lights were allowed on board and portholes were blackened, which meant everyone went to bed at sundown. It was too dangerous to move around in the dark. Settling five children in the small, airless cabin meant crying nearly every night.
She knew it could be worse and was pleased the children were well. With the shortage of baby food, many small children were sick, which meant their mothers were confined to cabins, nursing ill youngsters twenty-four hours a day.
‘Do you have family in Melbourne, Dottie?’ asked Edna. Dorothy noticed the seams of Edna’s dress weren’t under as much pressure as when she first boarded the ship. Everyone was losing weight quickly. The only food on offer was the bully beef and biscuits and the briny water upset people’s stomachs. Many complained of diarrhoea.
‘I know no-one in Victoria,’ she replied. ‘My Bert has a distant cousin who lives in Geelong. After he had waved us off, he was going to the post office to send a telegram telling him of our arrival date – which is a guess anyway.’
On Christmas Day, lunch was served in the dining room. Dorothy, Edna and their children, Dawn and her brothers sat at a long table with bench seats. The crew entered the dining hall carrying big trays of plates filled with steamed chicken and potatoes followed by jelly and custard. The children clapped their hands and the adults cheered.
‘A feast,’ said Edna. ‘Real food.’
Dorothy sat back and watched adults and children laugh and chat. Such a different mood from the bully beef meals, she thought.
Days later, they berthed at Bowen in Queensland.
‘I can’t wait to set foot on solid ground,’ Dorothy said to Peggy. ‘Go and fetch Dawn and the boys and we’ll walk into Bowen together.’
She followed the children down the gangplank and was struck by the brightness of the tall palm trees, banana trees and lush gardens. After days of looking at different hues of the ocean and blue sky, foliage took on a luminescent tone. Houses were built on stilts with wide wraparound verandas. Gardens were framed with untamed giant red, orange and yellow bougainvillea.
Dawn, Peggy, Reg and Harry raced one another along a dirt road in front of Dorothy piggybacking Ed. The children were thrilled with being able to run in a straight line as opposed to a circular direction on a crowded slippery, timber deck. Women holding baskets of fruit and wearing identical pinafores with the letters CWA embroidered in lemon cotton over their right breast met passengers along the road.
‘Here you go, kiddies,’ one said as she handed the children an orange each.
‘Thank God, fresh fruit,’ Dot said as she thanked the women.
Alerted to the evacuees’ arrival, residents opened up their home with invitations to a meal and a friendly chat. Dorothy wanted to make the most of walking on firm ground and to look at the shops. She knew the children would benefit from running in the fresh air, so declined the invitation. She found a sweet shop and bought a bag of barley sugar. She took her time in the fruit shop, picking out the best quality fruit. After paying her money she left with bags of oranges and apples, enough for each child to have a piece of fruit daily until they disembarked at Port Melbourne. Any left over she would leave with Dawn and her brothers. What would become of her and the three little tykes? Dawn was just a kid herself.
When the time came to return, she gathered up her charges for the walk back to the jetty. The children looked tired, but Dorothy could tell by their faces they were relaxed for the first time since boarding the Zealandia. She wondered whether Dawn and her brothers ever looked this calm. The tightness around their eyes had gone and they laughed and played like normal children.
O’Reilly stood at the top of the gangplank. Dorothy carried her shopping bags filled with fruit and sweets for the children. She walked up the ramp with the five youngsters in a single line behind her. O’Reilly wrenched the bags out of her hands and smashed them with a baton. Squashed to a pulp, juice from the oranges dripped through the hessian causing sticky puddles to form on the deck.
Peggy, Reg, Harry and Ed began to cry. Dawn picked up the toddler.
‘What are you doing?’ Dorothy asked, horrified.
‘We don’t want any alcohol brought on board the ship. We know you women have been sneaking grog on.’
Dorothy took a step closer to the guard, pushed her face forward so she was a few inches from his face. ‘You have just smashed fruit and lollies I bought for the children. Are you all mad?’
‘That’s enough from you, misses, get moving.’ He handed the bags
back to her.
Dorothy felt pressure in her chest and began to breathe deeply. The events of the last few weeks built up within her: the dire days on the ship; leaving her Bert behind; Peggy’s dolls thrown into the ocean; the bully beef; the salt water; not knowing where she was going or what she would do; spending precious money from her twenty pounds on fruit and sweets for the children, only to have them smashed. She moved even closer to the guard and stared into his eyes. They were the meanest eyes Dorothy had ever seen. At another time they would have intimidated her and she would have backed away.
‘Keep them, you stupid drongo.’
Dorothy didn’t blink and thought: if you so much as move your mouth the wrong way, I will kill you with my bare hands.
She watched the veins in the guard’s neck bulge and pulse.
‘Eat them yourself. I hope you choke and die a painful death and I hope I’m around to see it,’ she said. ‘You make me sick. Rot in hell.’ A piece of spit shot out of her mouth and landed on O’Reilly’s cheek. She held his stare.
He placed the sodden hessian bags gently on the ground and stepped aside so she could pass. She stood with her back to him and ushered her brood onto the ship for the last leg of the journey.
There was no-one to meet Dorothy and Peggy when they docked at Port Melbourne a few days later. They sheltered in a building on the wharf with other women and children waiting to be met. On the third day, a man walked up the wharf yelling, ‘Lawson, Lawson, I’m looking for Dorothy Lawson.’
She stood up and waved her hat. ‘I’m Dorothy Lawson. I’m Bert’s wife.’
Maurie Lawson stood six foot four with broad shoulders. His face was weathered. A wide-brimmed hat was pulled down to shade his face. He stood with his legs apart and smiled. Dorothy could see a faint resemblance between her husband and the man in front of her. The same smile, the same round face.
A tall woman in a yellow cotton frock and straw hat stepped forward and kissed Dorothy on the cheek. Smiling, she said, ‘Hello Dorothy, I’m Shirley, Maurie’s wife. We’ve been looking forward to your visit.’
‘The date on Bert’s telegram had been cut out,’ Maurie said as he picked up the case. ‘It was a guess as to when you’d arrive. I heard a ship had docked when I drove into town. I thought there were just the two of you.’
‘There were at the beginning of the trip. But these children have nowhere to go.’
‘Fair enough,’ said Shirley. ‘We’ll work something out, won’t we kids?’
Bess’ life revolved around looking after her son, sewing clothes on a treadle machine, gardening and cooking. In the evening, when Cleary was in bed asleep, she spent her time writing letters to Jock, not knowing whether they’d reach him or not, reading, or playing canasta with her sisters and mother with the wireless humming, just in case there was news.
Bess and Cleary continued to spend time with Dorothy and the children. The weather had changed; a late autumn chill was in the air. Trees were changing colour to vibrant reds and oranges, and regular rain turned the parched ground into lush grass. The colours of the autumnal trees fascinated Dorothy, so different from Darwin’s tropical weather all year long. On fine days the two women and their children walked along the foreshore or through Geelong’s Botanic Gardens where the older children kicked autumn leaves and played games together. The two little ones, Ed and Cleary, played alongside one another on a blanket while the women stretched out, read or chatted. Letters from Darwin were nearly non-existent now. Both women lived in hope and checked their mailboxes daily.
One day, when Bess turned into Clarence Street, she saw a bike parked against their front fence. A serviceman stood on the front porch. From the back she thought it might be Jock and her heart knocked against her chest, but when the soldier turned side-on she realised it wasn’t.
‘Can I help you?’ asked Bess.
‘I’m looking for Mary Brown.’
Mary appeared in the doorway wringing her hands on the bottom of her apron. Her eyes fixed on the telegram. She looked at Bess and swayed slightly before collapsing on the front step.
The message read: Died on Active Service. Frank had been killed at Ambon.
Sadness hung over Clarence Street and this time Mary was inconsolable. She took to her bed. Honor and Tilly followed suit. With a toddler to look after, Bess wasn’t afforded the luxury of nursing her grief through rest and sleep. The heartache from losing her little brother overwhelmed her. She missed Jock more than ever and wished life could go back to the time before Robert Menzies had addressed the nation.
Dorothy received a letter from Darwin. Bert had been killed in the first bombing attack. At first, Dorothy didn’t tell Peggy, but when the little girl found the letter, she stopped talking, eating, refused to go to school and stayed in her bedroom. Reg and Harry couldn’t understand why she didn’t want to play. They didn’t understand the heartbreak of losing a loving parent. To them, it was a relief when their father left.
Dawn took over the running of the house. She had learned from Dorothy the importance of a domestic rhythm. She cooked the meals, cleaned the house, ensured the boys were bathed and in bed on time. She made broth for Dorothy and Peggy and took trays to their rooms only to retrieve the uneaten soup at a later time.
In winter, Bess and Dorothy’s meetings in the park and on the foreshore stalled. They agreed the weather was too cold to take the children out. The unspoken truth was they both needed to stay indoors to tend to their grief.
Dorothy found a house in Clarence Street where she and the children could live on their own. It was near Bess and the older children’s school. While Dorothy worked at the Ford factory, Bess looked after Ed. Through heartbreak and loneliness, the women worked together to make a life for themselves and their children.
After eighteen months in Darwin, Jock was given leave and spent two weeks with Bess and Cleary. Time in Geelong with his wife and son restored him. Hand in hand, they strolled along Eastern Beach with their three-year-old running around their legs. They attended a couple of dances at the Geelong Town Hall. Bess borrowed one of Honor’s frocks – a short-sleeved, navy-blue waisted dress with white collar and cuffs. She pinched her lips to give them colour and sprayed herself with lavender water she kept for a special occasion. Jock polished his boots and wore his soldier’s uniform.
With her dance card discarded, Bess enjoyed every precious dance with her husband. The band played their favourites, The Andrews Sisters’ ‘Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy of Company B’, ‘Chattanooga Choo Choo’ and ‘Well All Right’, taking them back to an easier time, innocent days of prewar courtship. Jock was relieved and excited being separated hadn’t robbed them of their ease with one another. Each anticipated the other as they glided around the dance floor.
The youngster slept in one of the front bedrooms with either his grandmother or one of his aunts. Cleary protested loudly, slid out of bed and ran to the sunroom to find the door locked. He could hear his parents’ voices on the other side of the wall.
‘He’s used to sleeping with me. He doesn’t understand.’
‘Well, he has to learn. My place is in bed with you. That’s the way it will be when I’m home for good, so he may as well learn now.’
Bess lay quietly in the dark holding her husband’s hand. There was a sternness about him that hadn’t been there before. In time, someone took the sobbing boy back to bed. Jock raised himself onto his right elbow, smiled and stroked Bess’ hair.
‘He may come back.’
‘We’ve just over a week, love, before I go. Can we…?’
For a fortnight, they lived as a family in the small cottage with thin walls. The lack of privacy was frustrating for Jock. He had dreamed of his time with Bess. What he hadn’t taken into consideration were her mother, sisters and their son. Moments alone with his wife were few. Early mornings were the best. In the quiet house, he relished the touch of her soft, smooth body lying next to him. But the three-year-old was often at the door banging and kicking befor
e one of the women in the house distracted him.
Breakfast, lunch and tea were eaten at the kitchen table with Mary, Tilly, Honor and Cleary. Jock breathed in the smells of home-cooked meals, lavender water and velvet soap, a welcome contrast to the pong of men’s sweaty socks, Craven As and days’ old perspiration. He took in the ordinary household aromas, trying to file them away so he could retrieve them when he was back with his unit – a photograph of the senses.
He mowed the lawns, changed light globes and replaced washers in leaky taps. Bess laundered her husband’s army shirts with her son’s clothes in giant cement troughs in the lean-to at the back of the house. She filled a metal bucket with cold water then dropped in a Reckitt’s laundry blue bag. She swished Jock’s grubby singlets around in the blue-black water and left them to soak for a good few hours, before hanging them on the washing line strung between the side of the house and the trellis. She was proud of the now snowy-white singlets.
Jock found a pile of newspapers in the wastepaper stack at the back of the laundry. He folded a piece in half, then half again, then half again until he had an oblong shape. He placed this on another piece of newspaper, folded over both ends and wrapped the inner rectangular piece similar to a parcel of fish and chips. He continued until he had what resembled a curved rectangle-shaped football. He wound string around and around then secured it. Jock smiled, pleased with his make-do football.
‘Watch this, son.’
The boy was sitting in the sandpit digging with his red spade, plopping sand into a small tin bucket with red sailboats on the side. Jock dropped the newspaper football onto his foot and kicked it, softly.
He picked it up and said, ‘Watch again,’ then repeated the kick.
‘Come on, son.’ Jock took Cleary’s hand, stood him up, walked him out of the sandpit onto the lawn and placed the newspaper football into his hands. ‘You have a go, mate.’ The son looked up at his father.