SOMEDAY SOON (10 page)

When Joe gave the all-clear, Faith and two of
the older girls began preparing the usual mountain of sandwiches in
the galley for the midday meal and most of the other girls came
back up on deck. With the foredeck streaming wet from flying spray,
they sat in safe positions around the aft section under Koko’s
watchful eyes. Two of the smallest girls sat in a favorite spot,
tucked away in a small space between the wheelhouse and the foot of
the mizzen mast, beneath the boom cradle. An hour later when
everyone had eaten one of the girls saw something in the sky.

‘What’s that, Mr Joe?’ she called out loudly
and pointed a finger up into the gathering cloud.

The child was pointing high
above
Faraway’s
wake. Joe took
one hand off the wheel and glanced up over his shoulder. At first
he saw nothing, then sunlight caught something high in the sky
between two clouds. Joe gave Koko the wheel and reached for his
binoculars. He focused the lenses but saw nothing. Whatever he had
seen was now hidden behind the clouds. Just as he was lowering the
glasses an aircraft burst silently through the clouds. It was in
steep dive with its engine turned off and Joe realized with horror
that the pilot was using the surprise tactic employed by the
Japanese pilot over Croker Island.

‘Everyone below,
now!’
Joe screamed out at the top of his voice,
‘
Now... now… now!.’

Faith and the children rushed to the
companionway, almost falling over each other in their haste to
scramble down the steps into the main cabin. Joe remained in the
wheelhouse, his eyes on the aircraft as he pushed Koko, Sunday and
Monday down behind the children. Suddenly the engine of the
aircraft roared to life just a few hundred feet above the water and
about three hundred yards astern. As the Zero leveled out from the
dive, Joe could plainly see its Japanese markings. A moment later
its machine guns started to chatter as it began a strafing run.

At the last moment Joe jumped down into the
companionway and slammed the hatch shut above his head. A second
later, above the roar of the Zero’s engine, there was a loud
thumping as machine gun bullets hammered into the two inch thick
hardwood decking, sending a flurry of splinters flying around the
cabin.

The children clung to each other in terror.
Sunday and Monday crouched under the companion way steps, wide-eyed
with fear. Joe held Faith and waited. He could feel the ketch
losing some of her speed as, unattended, she gradually began to
come up into the wind. The sound of the Zero grew fainter. Koko
moved quickly through the vessel to the forward cabin, cautiously
opened the hatch and peered out. He closed it quickly and hurried
back to the main cabin. ‘The bastard is coming back for another go
at us, Joe.’

The low whine of the Zero’s engine rose to a
loud scream again and more machine gun fire raked the ketch,
slamming bullets into the deck and sending splinters flying again.
As the sound of the aircraft receded, Joe bounded up the
companionway and slid open the hatch and stuck his head out. He
stood on the steps and watched the Zero roar away steadily gaining
altitude as it went, until it disappeared completely from view.

There was a loud scream. It came from Faith.
Joe spun around. Faith’s blouse was spotting with blood. It was
dripping through the deck above her head.

‘Oh God, the children,’ Joe cried out.

He sprang up into the wheel house. It’s
windows were crimson with blood. In the confusion no one had
thought of the two little girls tucked away under the mizzen-mast
boom cradle. Joe reached them in an instant. The Zero’s guns had
done the deadly job they were designed to do. The two lifeless,
mangled bodies lay in a sea of blood. Joe raised a clenched fist at
the sky and screamed out in anguish:

‘You bastard. You rotten bastard. You rotten,
stinking, sodding, bastard.’

*

Faraway
limped
into shore. Joe stood grim-faced at the wheel. Everyone was in a
stunned silence. Unable to start the engine because a fluke hit by
machine gun fire had pierced the engine box beneath the wheelhouse
floor and shot away the distributor, Joe had no option but to sail.
Fortunately it was less than ten miles to the mouth of the Rose
River on the mainland. Joe knew there was a safe anchorage there
and a small Aboriginal settlement nearby. The wind in the ketch’s
old, worn sails had quickly turned dozens of bullet holes from the
strafing into ever-lengthening rips and tears. When
Faraway
finally nosed her way into
still water just inside the mouth of the Rose River, the sails were
in tatters.

By providence,
Faraway’s
dinghy had not been holed and Sunday
began ferrying everyone ashore to a small beach. Joe and Koko went
first with the bodies of the two little girls wrapped in blankets.
Joe laid them gently under a tree at the top of the beach and told
Koko to wait there while he walked to the settlement about a mile
away. When he returned everyone was sitting waiting on the beach.
Joe sat down among them .

‘There’s no one down at the old mission,’ Joe
said. ‘There was a notice on one of the bark huts saying all the
blacks have been moved to a control camp somewhere back in the
bush.’

‘Whereabouts?’ Faith asked.

‘The notice didn’t say. But I reckon they’d
have taken them south-west towards Ngukurr. It’s about seventy
miles from here on the Roper River, about thirty miles inland.’

‘What’s a control camp?’ Koko asked.

Joe shrugged. ‘The notice said they were
moved by order of the Army. Sergeant Maxwell said something in
Darwin about the Army wanting to keep all the blacks under
surveillance in case they help the Japs when they land.’

Koko shook his head. ‘That’s about the
stupidest thing I ever heard.’

Joe said, ‘Maxwell told me some of the Army
officers reckon the Japs have already told the Aborigines that if
they help them when they land, they’ll give them back the country
the Europeans stole from them.’

‘That’s even more stupid,’ Faith said. She
looked around at the girls gathered on the beach. ‘What are we
going to do now?’

‘I’m going to bury the girls first,’
Joe said. ‘After that I don’t really know. After what happened
today, I don’t want to take these children out to sea again. It’s
still over thirty miles to the Roper River. We were just plain
lucky today
.
We could have all
been shot or drowned. I won’t take that chance again. I should have
realized there would be Jap planes around Groote Eylandt looking to
knock out tankers supplying the flying boat refueling depot. When
they get bored, I suppose they shoot up anything they see.’ Joe got
to his feet. ‘Look, I think we’d all better go down to the
settlement and spend the night there At least it’s good shelter and
we can think about what we’re going to do.’

Faith said, ‘I’ll tell Sunday and Monday to
fetch some food and things we’ll need from the boat.’

Joe nodded. ‘And tell them to bring a shovel
and my rifle.’

Later that night, Joe, Faith and Koko talked
quietly around an open fire at the abandoned settlement. All the
younger children were asleep in nearby bark huts. Some of the older
girls sat huddled around the fire staring into the flickering
flames.

‘I won’t take those children out again to be
shot at like sittings ducks,’ Joe said somberly. ‘It’s just too
bloody dangerous. Besides, we’ve been at sea so long we don’t know
what's going on ashore. Anything could have happened. Look at this
place—everyone carted off to God only knows where. Things change.
We don’t even know for certain that there’ll be anyone waiting for
us at the Roper River.’

‘We can’t stay here for long, Joe.’ Faith
said. ‘We don’t have much food and nothing’s been left here.’

Faith and Joe fell silent and stared into the
fire.

‘I
have an idea.’ Koko
said after a long silence. ‘We have another suit of sails in the
forward cabin. They’re even older than those we’ve been using but
they’re in better condition now. I’ll hank them on and sail
Faraway
over to Groote Eylandt
tomorrow. It’s not much more than thirty miles. I can find out
what’s happening on the mainland from the blokes at the depot and
ask if the Air Force can help us. If they can’t, at least I can use
their radio to talk to the missions along the Roper
River.’

Joe shook his head. ‘That’s not such a good
idea Koko. It’s too risky. Those sails won’t stand up to more than
a fifteen-knot breeze and if they do the mainmast won’t. It took
several hits in the strafing. And besides, if you did make it,
they’d shoot a Japanese on sight.’

‘What are we going to do then?’ Koko asked
softly.

Joe stared thoughtfully into the fire. After
a few moments he said:

‘First thing in the morning we’ll dig out
those sails and take a good look at the boat. If I think she can
make it and if the weather doesn’t play up, I’ll sail her over to
Groote Eylandt tomorrow night. I won’t risk going in daylight and I
won’t risk anyone’s else’s life, so I’ll be going alone.’

*

The next morning Joe and Koko went
over
Faraway
with a
fine-toothed comb. They found plenty of places where the machine
gun fire had hit the hull. Most had been glancing shots and none
had penetrated the hard-as-concrete, jarrah planking. But a few
bullets had embedded themselves in caulking between the timbers and
Joe knew that water would slowly seep into the boat in these
places. Also, both masts had been hit and would be unreliable under
strain. But when the old sails were taken out of their bags and
spread out on the beach for inspection, Joe was pleased to find
they were in better shape than he expected.

After the horror of the day before, all
the girls were plainly glad to be staying on dry land. Joe decided
to take off
Faraway
everything
that could be of any use ashore and each time Monday and Sunday
brought a fresh load to the beach in the dinghy, the girls carried
the contents down to the settlement. By mid-afternoon there was
little remaining on
Faraway
except a small amount of food and water, marine charts and
Joe’s father’s pistol.

Joe was ready to leave at dusk but waited a
few more hours to allow the incoming tide to give him more
clearance over the sandbars at the mouth of the river. While he
waited he eyed the weather anxiously. Patchy clouds at times hid
the moon. The wind which had been slight all day, was picking up.
Joe hoped the wet wouldn’t decide to pick that particular night to
finally end with a violent electrical storm.

Just after nine o’clock, Joe climbed in
the dinghy to row out to
Faraway
. ‘It’s a clear run over to Groote
Eylandt,’ he said. ‘If the wind holds, I’ll be off Tasman Point
around dawn. I should be back in a couple of days. If I’m not,
don’t worry. You know you can’t set a timetable when your dependent
on the wind.’

Joe had told Sunday and Monday to build up
the fire at the settlement in case he needed it as a reference
point as he sailed out over the shoals to the open sea. But as he
raised the anchor and hoisted sail, the clouds parted and the river
mouth was bathed in moonlight. An hour later he was five miles out
to sea. During the night the wind gradually shifted and kept
increasing in strength. By midnight, the wind was howling in the
rigging and Joe had reduced sail to just the main alone. At times
the gusts were so strong he worried about the strain on the
mainmast.

As the hours passed, the sky became
cloudy, blacking out the moon and the stars. Visibility was reduced
to practically zero and with the wind still increasing, the sea was
becoming very rough. But with
Faraway
taking the heavy weather in her stride
and still making good headway, Joe was reluctant to shorten sail
further. He knew he was pushing the ketch to the limit but was
determined to be off Groote Eylandt by daybreak.

Around five o’clock it started to rain
with the suddenness and intensity only found in the tropics. Jagged
flashes of lightening lit up the sky. What Joe saw was frightening.
The wind had whipped up the sea into a seething, frothing mass of
white water. Then a powerful gust almost laid the ketch on her
side. Joe realized he had left it too late to put a reef in the
mainsail. Just as
Faraway
was
righting herself, there was a loud crack; the mainmast broke like a
match-stick and came crashing down. As it fell, it ripped the
mizzen mast right out of the deck and everything collapsed in an
avalanche of splintered timber and twisted rigging, crushing the
wheelhouse roof and leaving Joe unconscious under a pile of
debris.

Faraway
was
rocking gently on a sloppy swell when Joe groggily came to. It was
a little while before he could think clearly and remember what had
happened. A rhythmic thumping on the side of the boat told him a
section of the mainmast, still attached to the shrouds was trying
to punch it’s way through the hull. He moved to get up. The sudden
motion made his head swim and he realized from a stab of
excruciating pain in his left arm that it was broken. Joe sank back
down into the small, dim cavity in the crushed wheelhouse that had
saved his life. He raised his right hand to his head. When he felt
a deep gash in his forehead was crusted with dried blood, he
realized he had been unconscious for a long time.

Joe stared up into the debris above him.
Bright sunlight was trying to penetrate through crumpled sail
canvas. He tried again to raise himself up. There was no part of
his body that didn’t hurt. Joe thought he would pass out again from
the pain but after several minutes of agonizing maneuvering he
managed to get to his knees. He began trying to push the heavy
canvas aside. Eventually he made a peep hole and sunshine came
streaming in.