Flight of the Jabiru (35 page)

“After I've checked the hospital, I'll check the
Manunda
to see if Lara is there,” Rick said. “Why are you and Stella still here, George? Wouldn't it be safer to get out?”

“We're not deserters, like a lot of the air force personnel,” George said proudly.

“To be fair, they were told by their commanders to hide in the bush, but many of them took it to heart and went bush and never came back,” Stella added.

“There's been some looting going on by members of the Army Provost Corps and civilians,” George said. “Some of it is justified, with essentials being requisitioned for military use, but a neighbor had his piano taken and he believes it has been sent south to the family of a military looter. He's absolutely heartbroken about it as the piano has been in his family for generations.”

“Possessions aren't worth losing your life for, George,” Rick said.

“This place is going to be taken over by the military as the northern air base for the flying boat squadron, if they have any boats left. We feel it's our duty to protect it until that happens.”

“If anyone tries to take something of ours, and George doesn't shoot them first, they'll get my pitch fork right where it hurts the most,” Stella said feisty.

“It would be a foolish person who takes on either of you,” Rick said and meant it.

“Maybe your lady friend has gone home,” George said. “Does she live in the city?”

“No, she's from Shady Camp billabong. She's the teacher in town,” Rick replied.

“That's a coincidence,” George said. “We had the storekeeper here during the first air raid.”

“We all hid in the gully together,” Stella added.

“Colin was ... here? He brought Lara and another girl to the city. He said he searched for them after the raid, but couldn't find them. So he returned to the wetlands without them.”

“Then they couldn't get home if they wanted to, which means they were stuck in the city for the second and third raids,” George said. “Who knows what might've happened to them.”

Rick's heart sank even further.

“Don't give up, though,” George said. “We're still alive and we've been here through the raids. Have you got a torch?”

“No, I didn't think to bring one.”

“Then take this one,” George said, handing it to him. “You can also use my motorcycle, but don't let anyone else get their hands on it. The army drained my car of gas, but they didn't know about the motorbike. If Stella and I need to get out of here, that's what we'll be using.”

“Thanks, George. I'll guard it with my life.”

“Don't go that far, lad. Be safe now. See you when you get back and the best of luck.”

Rick checked each ward that was open in the Darwin hospital. Those damaged had been closed off, but even in the open wards, most of the beds were empty. He'd already checked the list of those evacuated from the hospital, and although he'd been told that no one fitting the description of Lara or Jiana were in the wards, he still insisted on checking for himself. He was then directed to the morgue, as many of the bodies had not been formerly identified. The morgue assistant took him to each female body in Lara and Jiana's age group. As Rick looked at lifeless faces, some terribly damaged, his heart thudded wildly. He felt saddened, and sickened.

“You know at least fifty people killed will never be identified,” the kindly morgue assistant said when Rick had checked the last of the bodies. “I'm not saying those you are looking for are one of those, but keep it in mind.”

Rick said nothing, but he felt sick inside. He couldn't believe that Lara and Jiana had been in the education department building. He refused to believe it.

The state of the city had been hard to comprehend. Even as Rick navigated the pitch-dark streets, or those illuminated by fires not yet extinguished, he could see that most of the city had been destroyed. Few people were around. The chaos and destruction at the wharf was an even bigger shock. It was utter devastation. Few ships were unscathed or not damaged severely, the
Manunda
being one of a handful. He could see the masts of several that had been sunk. Debris, stores, and rubbish were strewn along the shoreline.

After checking the
Manunda
, which had been moved to the small part of the jetty still standing, and not finding the girls, Rick was lost. He didn't know what to do. He drove around the deserted streets. Without thinking about it, he found himself in the street where the education department building had been. It was utter devastation with nearly every building destroyed. It took him a few minutes to get his bearings.

The headlamp on the motorcycle illuminated the site where the education department building had stood. All that was left was rubble, dust, and eerie silence. Leaving the headlamp on, Rick got off the motorcycle and stepped onto the site. The reality of what might've happened suddenly hit him. He could be standing right where Lara and Jiana had been killed.

“Oh, God,” he groaned.

“Are you all right, sir?”

Rick turned to find a soldier behind him. He shook his head. “I've been looking for someone ... for two girls who were in the city on the nineteenth.”

“This is the site of the education department.”

“I know,” Rick mumbled, almost overwhelmed by his emotions.

“Were they visiting this building?”

Rick nodded.

“As far as we know there were a few staff in the building at the time it was bombed, but we don't know about anyone else,” the young soldier said.

“I thought they'd be in the hospital, but they weren't,” Rick said.

“Did you check the
Manunda
?”

“Yes and the evacuees list.”

“I'm sorry, sir. I don't have any helpful advice.” He consulted his watch.

“I must go, so I'll leave you here, but don't stay long. There could be another raid at any time.”

Rick nodded. He almost wished there was a raid because then he'd suffer the same fate, at the same place that Lara lost her life. He fell to his knees in the rubble and tears streamed down his face. “Why, Lara, why did you have to be right here at the moment the Japs bombed Darwin,” he sobbed. He couldn't believe how cruel life could be.

Rick drove the motorcycle recklessly fast to the Carroll's place and put it back in the small shed behind the pawpaw trees at the back of the property, where George had kept it hidden. He was relieved that his friends were sleeping because he couldn't face their questions or their sympathy. He couldn't say the words out loud, that Lara and Jiana had been killed. He crept to the wharf, boarded his boat, and set off for the Vernon Islands. By the time the islands were in view, dawn was breaking in the eastern sky. The vivid streaks of gold, pinks, and reds were magnificent, but he was in no mind to appreciate nature's wondrous spectacle. The dawn sky was yet another painful reminder of Lara because she loved sunsets and sunrise.

With the wind in his face, blowing away his salty tears, Rick thought of her smile, her beauty, her spirit, her sense of humor and fun. All that he'd lost. That he'd never see her again was inconceivable, but although it was extremely difficult for him he finally had to accept it as the devastating truth.

Above the low hum of his boat's engine, Rick was barely conscious of planes in the western sky. His heart ached with sadness, numbing his senses, so he didn't give the Japanese bombers a second thought. Even though his life hadn't felt empty before he met Lara, now that he knew what it was like to love a woman deeply, he couldn't contemplate his life without her. It was too painful.

As the planes dropped in altitude, he heard the whistling of bombs dropping and explosions over his right shoulder on the mainland, and behind him, on Bathurst and Melville Islands. He also heard machine gun fire, but he didn't give his own safety a thought. If he lost his life, then he'd be with Lara in the hereafter, and that was a comforting thought because he didn't want to go on without her.

Rick rounded Cape Hotham, amazed that he hadn't been blown out of the water. He operated the boat automatically, without feeling. Two hours later, on impulse, he didn't turn into the Mary River inlet. He kept going along the coast, sailing into Thring Creek on high tide, at Point Stuart. He chastised himself for his cowardly behavior, but he wasn't yet ready to face the townsfolk of Shady Camp. He was familiar with the Aboriginal community at Point Stuart so he knew they would accept him and not ask questions. He tied the boat to shady trees several miles up the creek. When he turned the engine off and silence fell all around him, he collapsed on his bed and curled up. After a few minutes of hearing only his steady thumping heartbeat and deep breathing, he began to sob, then weariness caught up with him and he fell into an exhausted sleep.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

February 21

“I can't go any further, Jiana,” Lara said, dragging her blistered, aching feet. After somehow surviving the boat trip with Burt Watson, and then walking for hours, they made camp roughly eight miles from the Adelaide River. By nightfall, they were so exhausted that they fell asleep as soon as they lay down.

As soon as the sun came up, they began walking again, and walked for hours. By early afternoon, Lara felt terribly weak. “I'm ...,” she gasped. “...so thirsty.” They'd run out of water two hours earlier, in the hottest part of the day, and it felt like she'd perspired a bucketful since then.

“The billabong that Leroy told us about ... it just up ahead, Lara. We get plenty water there.” Jiana feared they might miss it, but her instincts told her they were going in the right direction.

“How far?” Lara's mouth was as parched as dry grass. The sun was hiding behind clouds that were gathering, but by a cruel twist of fate there didn't seem to be any rain in them.

“Not far. Keep going.” Jiana took her arm and tried to help her along.

“Can we swim in the billabong?” Lara asked, hopeful. She was so hot and dirty. The thought of being able to quench her thirst and bathe was all she could think about.

“Yeah, if there's enough water and it not bad,” Jiana said.

“Do you mean stagnant?” Lara asked.

“Yeah, bad water.”

They'd had a good wet season, but it had been very hot, and Jiana didn't know how big the billabong was, or how quickly the water might've evaporated. She could tell that Lara was dehydrated and near exhausted and she didn't feel much better. All they'd eaten that day was a few pieces of bush fruit. They needed protein.

“I'd give anything ... anything ... for a drink and a decent meal,” Lara grumbled. She could barely face another piece of bush fruit because it was giving her tummy ache.

Jiana knew there was a small fry pan in the rucksack that Leroy had given them. “Maybe I can find some eggs,” she said, relishing the thought.

Lara's spirits lifted. “Eggs! Really?” She knew they wouldn't be chicken eggs, but she no longer cared.

“Yeah, maybe. Keep walking and I'll look out for some.”

An hour later, Lara stopped. “I can't go any further, Jiana,” she said in a voice barely more than a hoarse whisper. She felt on the verge of collapse.

“The billabong is just up ahead,” Jiana said, worried for her friend.

“You said that before ... and ... we've walked miles.”

“I can see the water through the trees,” Jiana said, pointing ahead.

“Where?” Lara squinted and took a few more unsteady steps. Her eyesight was playing tricks on her. She couldn't see anything but trees up ahead.

“It right there,” Jiana assured her. “Keep walking.”

Lara trudged the last thirty yards and then the billabong came into view. It was as big as a dam in the English countryside, but surrounded by marshy grassland on one side, and rocks and trees on the other. She'd never in all her life been so happy to see water.

“This is the billabong that Burt talkin' ‘bout,” Jiana said to Lara, who had no memory of anything he'd said after getting aboard his leaky boat. He'd given them helpful directions but Lara had been in too much shock to take anything in. All she'd been able to imagine was their horrific fate in the jaws of hungry crocodiles. Luckily Jiana had presence of mind to remember his instructions. “There be no crocodiles here. We rest and bathe and find some good tucker.”

Lara thought they'd stumbled upon paradise.

“I maybe find some bird eggs to cook,” Jiana promised.

“As long as it's not fruit, I'll eat it,” Lara said eagerly. She was too hungry to be squeamish.

Lara rushed to the water's edge, but hesitated, scanning the surface and the far bank, something she'd gotten into the habit of doing. “How do we know no crocodiles live in the billabong?” she asked.

“It freshwater, too far ‘way from tidal rivers or flood plains,” Jiana explained.

Lara didn't think about it a second longer. She kicked the shoes off her sore feet and threw her hat aside and waded into the cool water, still wearing her dress. As the cool water enveloped her body, she sighed with exquisite pleasure. Cupping water in her hands, she drank thirstily.

The billabong water tasted a lot better than what they'd taken from the Adelaide River. Once Lara's thirst was quenched, she submerged herself. It was pure bliss to feel cool and wet. When her head popped out of the water she had a broad smile on her face, the first in days. She floated on her back under the shade of trees, kicking her feet. The water felt so good that she was convinced she was having a beautiful dream. “Is this real, Jiana?” she dared to ask, frightened she was hallucinating.

“Yes,” Jiana said, scouting their environment for a food source.

“I'm never leaving this spot,” Lara declared. “Never!”

Jiana removed her sandals and the rucksack and also waded into the water. After quenching her thirst, and splashing about, she went to the rucksack and got their water canteens to refill them. Crouching on a rock at the water's edge, she refilled each of the four canteens. As she did so, she was looking into the water.

Lara happened to glance at Jiana and saw her expression become earnest. “What's wrong?” she asked in concern.

“Shhhh. Keep still,” Jiana whispered, keeping her focus on what she could see under the water as she reached for a tree branch lying nearby.

“Why?' Lara asked in alarm.

“Don't move,” Jiana stressed as she tried to see into the shadows of the water.

Lara caught the urgency in her voice and thought she was about to use the stick to try and scare something away. There was no way she could keep still. She clambered out of the water as fast as her shaking limbs allowed.

“What's wrong?” she asked breathlessly and dripping wet when she was on the safety of hard ground.

“I told you, not move,” Jiana replied in frustration.

Lara was already putting the shoes on again, ready to run if she had to. “I wasn't going to wait to get eaten by a crocodile.”

“I told you ... no crocs in this billabong.”

“Then why did I have to keep still?” Lara's mind was racing as she wondered what other kinds of harmful creatures lived in Australian billabongs.

“You frighten the fish I was going to spear,” Jiana said, holding up the branch she'd picked up to show her the sharp, pointy end. “He gone now and he was gonna be plenty good tucker.”

Lara got a mental picture of a delicious fish dinner and her stomach growled noisily. “Why didn't you say so?”

“I was tryin' not to frighten the fish.”

“I'm sorry,” Lara said. “Is there any chance you'll see it again.”

“Maybe he come back,” Jiana said, peering into the water, shadowed by the overhanging trees. “He was hidin' by a big tree branch in the water.”

Lara remembered thinking a crocodile was a floating tree log when she first arrived in Shady Camp. “Are you sure it's a tree log?” she asked, going closer to Jiana to peer into the water. “I see it,” she said, and then shrieked. “It's got legs!” She took a step backwards.

“That not legs. Its smaller branches,” Jiana said exasperated.

“I don't think so,” Lara said, backing up even more. “I'm not going back in the water and you should move away from the edge.”

“You find fire wood,” Jiana said. “And be quiet about it,” she added sternly.

When Lara returned to the campsite, Jiana was laughing with happiness and a very big fish lay on the rocks.

“You caught him,” Lara said in amazement. “With only a stick,” she added in disbelief.

“We be lucky this stick lyin' here,” Jiana said. “Some blackfellas used it before.” When she'd examined it closely she found it had been sharpened at one end.

Jiana made a circle using small rocks. She put the firewood in the center of the circle, along with some kindling, and lit it. When it was burning nicely, the fry pan was put over the flames. It didn't take long to become hot, and then Jiana put the fish in the pan. It was so large that it overlapped the sides. While it sizzled nicely, Lara removed her dress and washed it in the billabong. Jiana removed her dress and gave it to her to wash while she kept an eye on the fish and turned it over. Although it was strange to be out in the open wearing just underwear, Lara didn't feel uneasy as there was no one around and the circumstances were so unusual. Jiana also appeared to be relaxed. Being cool and clean overshadowed everything else.

When the fish was cooked and the dresses were hanging over a bush to dry, the girls sat in the shade and ate ravenously, using their fingers to break the fish up. It had smelt wonderful while it cooked, but it tasted even better.

“Do you think we'll find any more billabongs like this when we leave here?” Lara asked, licking fish juices from her fingers.

“We not far from Corroboree billabong and wetlands,” Jiana said, consulting the map that Leroy had given them. “Maybe a day's walk.”

“But there'll be crocodiles in the Corroboree billabong,” Lara said disheartened.

“Yeah, and we still have to cross the Mary River,” Jiana added.

Lara groaned at the thought.

“We should get moving soon,” Jiana suggested. “We can walk few hours before night time.”

“Let's rest just a little while longer,” Lara said, reluctant to leave the oasis now that she was certain there were no crocodiles nearby. She just wanted to close her eyes and soak her sore and tired feet for a little while longer.

“All right. Just little while,” Jiana agreed.

The girls lay back on a shady rock and closed their eyes with their feet dangling in the billabong. As their underwear and hair was still damp, they felt cool and relaxed.

Lara could hear the sounds of the bush; birds twittering in the overhead tree branches, while the leaves rustled in the warm breeze. Other than that, silence.

A short while later Jiana touched her arm.

“Just a few more minutes,” Lara said sleepily.

“Get up,” Jiana said insistently.

Lara opened her eyes. “But you said we could rest a few minutes,” she complained. She was confused, as Jiana was looking over her right shoulder, in another direction. Lara turned to see what had captured her attention and then squealed in alarm. Three adolescent, scantily clad male aborigines were looking at them with huge grins on their faces. Lara jumped up and snatched her dress from the overhanging tree branches and clasped it in front of her.

“Where did they come from?” she asked Jiana, but she was really wondering how long they might've been standing their taking in the ‘view'.

Jiana whipped her dress from the tree branch as well, shielding her semi-nakedness, and then both girls stood looking at the young men fearfully.

Jiana spoke to them in the Larrakia language to see if they understood her. One of them replied and then the men had a discussion amongst themselves.

Jiana said something else and the men turned their backs, albeit, reluctantly. The girls quickly put their dresses on.

“What shall we do?” Lara whispered.

“We be right. They harmless blackfellas,” Jiana replied.

When the men turned to face them again, Lara was blushing and uncomfortable, but Jiana appeared calm. She spoke to the boys, around fifteen years old, and then turned to Lara.

“They take us to Corroboree billabong,” she said.

Lara blinked in surprise. “Can't we get there alone?”

“Maybe, but it better we go with them,” Jiana said. “They can hunt for tucker ‘long the way. They make it easier for us to get to the township near the billabong.”

Lara liked the idea of finding a township. Then she remembered that Jerry visited patients at the Corroboree township and she grew excited. Maybe they'd be lucky and he'd be there. That would save days of walking.