SOMEDAY SOON (5 page)

‘Right, from what we’ve seen, it looks like
the authorities in town have their hands full, so we’ll probably
have to fend for ourselves.’ Joe turned to Dan Rivers and Koko.
‘Captain, you’ll want to get back to your unit right away, and
Koko, you’d better get over to Myilly Point, so I’ll take you two
ashore first.’ He turned to the children. ‘Then I’ll take you lot
ashore a few at a time and we’ll see what can be done about getting
you out of Darwin. If anyone gets lost or separated, come back to
the anchorage here and sing out. Sunday and Monday are staying
aboard to mind the boat.’

It was dark when the dinghy reached the shore
at the edge of the mangroves. Koko jumped out and took off at a
run, slipping and sliding through the mud, heading for Myilly
Point. When the captain clambered out he hesitated, then turned and
stepped back into knee-deep water and grabbed the dinghy by the
gunwales.

‘It’ll be pitch black in a few minutes, Joe.
I think I’d better walk into town with you and those kids. I figure
it’s the least I can do.’

‘You’ll make better time on your own,
Captain.’

‘I know that, but I’m going to go with you
and the kids.’ The American pushed off the dinghy. ‘Now let’s hurry
it up. I know there’s crocodiles and snakes in these
mangroves.’

When the last of the children were put
ashore, Sunday rowed the dinghy back to the ketch. Then everyone
struggled through the mangroves to dry land and up to a railway
line on higher ground which ran parallel to the shore. They
followed the tracks in the darkness towards town. Joe led the way,
with the children grouped behind him and Captain Rivers bringing up
the rear. They walked for about half a mile through heavily bombed
scrub to the town railway station. Somehow the railway line itself
had miraculously escaped being hit.

The station was deserted except for two
military police trucks parked on the platform. As the weary group
straggled in, the headlights of the vehicles on the platform above
them suddenly lit up. The doors swung open and several provosts
jumped out with drawn revolvers.

‘Stop right where you are, you lot.’ a loud
voice shouted out.

Blinded by the glare, everyone stopped dead.
The Aboriginal children clung to each other, frightened out of
their wits. Captain Rivers stood perfectly still holding two of the
smallest youngsters by the hand.

‘Who are you?’ The loud voice belonged to a
provost sergeant. He was standing about twenty yards away with his
Luger pointed directly at Joe. ‘Where do you think your going with
those Abos?’

‘I’m Joe Brodie, the skipper of the
coastal trader,
Faraway
.’ Joe
squinted through the glare. Now he could see the provost sergeant
and the gun. ‘Put the bloody gun down. Do I look like a Jap or
something? I’ve brought these children here to be
evacuated.’

‘Are you bloody mad?’ the sergeant shouted.
‘Lepers can’t come near anyone. Take them back to Channel Island
where they belong. We know they’ve been sneaking over to the
mainland and setting up camps in the mangroves. I’ll shoot anyone
who takes a step closer.’

‘They’re not from Channel Island. We’ve just
sailed in from Bathhurst Island.’

The sergeant hesitated. He seemed unsure what
to do next.

‘It’s okay, Sergeant,’ the captain called
out. He walked toward the platform. ‘It’s true. I sailed over with
them. I’m Captain Dan Rivers, United States Army Air Force.’

‘It’s only okay when I say it’s okay,’ the
sergeant shouted. ‘So don’t come any closer, Yank. Nobody’s going
anywhere. Darwin’s under martial law now. That means Australian
military provosts are in charge here.’

‘Sergeant,’ Joe said quickly ‘take a look at
these children. They’re not lepers. They’re all healthy. Look at
their skin. It’s quite normal. None of them are disfigured or
deformed. I just want to hand them over to the authorities for
evacuation.’

‘It’s too late to evacuate anyone, now. All
the government people and civilians have gone south and all the
Abos have gone bush. As I told you, the provosts are in charge of
everything now. So I’m telling you lot to go back where you came
from.’

‘You’re not in charge of me.’ Captain Rivers
walked towards the sergeant. ‘I’m going back to my unit if there’s
anything left of it. Are there still Americans left at the RAAF
station?’

‘There’s not much left of the station. The
Yanks have set up bush camps out of town the same as we have. But
if you’re lucky you might find some of your MPs around town.’

‘What about the Northern Territory Police?’
Joe asked. ‘Are there any officers still here?’

‘Yeah, they’re still here. Most of them are
still burying dead sailors down on the beach by the harbor.’

‘Is Sergeant Maxwell there?’

The sergeant nodded. ‘I think so.’

‘I want to go and talk to him about these
children.’

‘You know Sergeant Maxwell, do you?’

‘Yes. My father was with the Territory Police
for years.’

‘
All right then. But those kids don’t move an
inch.’ The sergeant holstered his revolver. He turned to Captain
Rivers and cocked his head toward the platform. ‘All right, you can
come up now too.’

Dan Rivers looked at the children gathered around
him. They all looked very frightened. He turned back to the
provost. ‘If it’s all the same to you, Sergeant,’ he said quietly.
‘I figure I’ll just hang around here until Joe gets back.’

*

Koko ran across the mile and a half wide neck of land
which separated Frances Bay from Myilly Point without stopping.
Streets he had known since boyhood now suddenly seemed alien and
strange. Open doors of deserted homes swung eerily to and fro. Now
and then, plaintive sounds pierced the night as abandoned household
pets searched for absent owners and scraps of food. There were bomb
craters everywhere, and on many blocks of land there was only
rubble where houses had stood the day before. Apart from the
passage of an occasional military vehicle, Darwin had become a
ghost town.

As he neared Myilly Point, Koko was glad to see the
destruction didn’t seem to be quite so bad. Apart from the new
hospital which had been hit and obviously abandoned, there seemed
to be little damage to the nearby houses. Without breaking his
stride he bounded over the low white picket fence surrounding his
mother’s garden and rushed through the back door.

Koko called out his mother’s name. There was no
answer. He called out again but still there was no reply. He
fumbled in the darkness in the kitchen drawer where he knew his
mother kept a torch. Finding it, he shone it ahead of him as he
hurried through the passageway to the front of the house. Koko
stopped in his tracks when he saw an empty whisky bottle on the
floor outside his mother’s bedroom. Then he saw her black kimono
lying in shreds on the living-room floor. At once he knew something
was terribly wrong. The bedroom door was ajar. With his heart
pounding, he pushed it open and shone the torch inside. He cried
out in anguish when the light fell on Aki’s lifeless body.

*

Sergeant Maxwell was about to climb into his
utility when Joe reached the police barracks on the Esplanade. The
policeman looked tired and grim-faced. When he saw Joe he managed a
tight smile.

‘So you made it back all right, Joe?
Someone said they thought they saw
Faraway
coming into Frances Bay. I was just about
to go home and tell Faith. She’s at my place. I expect she’s awake
by now. She worked fourteen hours straight at the hospitals last
night.’ The sergeant opened the door of the van. ‘Hop
in.’

‘Thank God, she’s all right.’ Joe’s relief
showed on his face but he made no move toward the vehicle. ‘Tell me
what the hell is happening here, George. I just brought some
children and a shot-down American pilot over from Bathhurst. I
anchored at the edge of the mangroves and when we walked down to
the railway station we were held at gun point by the Army
provosts.’

Maxwell sighed and shook his head. ‘They are
in charge now, Joe. They are mostly just young militia conscripts
and they’re being a bit heavy-handed. But the town went mad
yesterday after the raids. Everyone was scared the Japs were going
to land any minute. People just dropped everything, abandoned their
homes and businesses, and headed south any way they could. And it
wasn’t just civilians. Most of the airmen at the RAAF station
deserted and they were joined by a lot of soldiers and sailors. It
was like rats deserting a sinking ship. Then the looters went to
work. There’s hardly a house in town that hasn’t been
vandalized.’

‘Mine included, I suppose?’ Joe said
resignedly

‘I expect so, Joe. But I drove by it earlier
today. It looks okay.’

‘But, if everyone’s gone, who doing the
looting?’

‘Mainly servicemen. The barracks in town have
been deserted. The soldiers are carting stuff off to bush camps.
Some of them told me they’d been ordered by their officers to swipe
anything that was useful. The rest are stranded civilians who can’t
get out of town, or sailors off ships that got wrecked or sunk in
the harbor. They’re breaking into homes just to get a feed and a
roof over their heads.’

‘What a damn mess,’ Joe said angrily. `What
am I supposed to do with the children I brought from Bathurst?’

‘The Army told me there’s a freight train
leaving Larrimah for Darwin late tonight. It probably won’t be here
until sometime tomorrow. As soon as it’s unloaded it will going
straight back. They won’t allow civilians to board it; it
contravenes some stupid regulation I suppose. But I got the
Territory Administrator to persuade the Army to turn a blind eye if
the few remaining civilian women in Darwin travel on it as far as
Katherine. They’ll have to ride on open flat-top wagons but it’s
the only way out now. I’ve told Mrs Maxwell and Faith that they’d
better be among them. Perhaps we can get your kids on it too. Where
are they?’

‘Still at the railway station. The provost
sergeant won’t let them move. He thinks they’re from the
leprosarium on Channel Island.’

‘Oh, God.’ The sergeant threw up his hands.
‘And what about the American pilot?’

‘He’s staying with them until I get
back.’

‘Come on.’ Maxwell opened the door of the ute
and climbed in.

Joe quickly got in beside him. ‘Where are we
going, George?’

‘There are some American military police
further down the beach. We’ll tell them about their pilot, then
we’ll all go back to the station.’

‘What are the MPs doing on the beach?’ Joe
asked as the ute swung out onto the Esplanade.

‘
They’re trying to identify Americans
among the bodies that keep coming up out of the harbor. We’ve been
burying men on the beach all day with no way of telling the
nationality of most of them. In this heat we’ve had to move
quickly. There were so many bodies we even had to send some out to
sea for burial. And we’re not getting them all. The ones that
surface down near the mangroves will be eaten by the crocs, I
suppose.’

Joe closed his eyes and grimaced. After a
moment he said, ‘How are you going to convince the provosts to
release the children?’

‘
I’ll tell them I’ve got permission
from their commanding officer to use my discretion regarding
evacuees.’

‘
Have you?’

‘
No.’

‘What if he checks with the Army?’

‘They’ve got more important things to do than
deal with a jumped-up provost sergeant who thinks he’s a real
policeman, Joe.’

Joe glanced at the sergeant. ‘You could get
yourself into a lot of trouble, George.’

‘We’ll all be in a lot more trouble if the
bloody Japs land. Oh hell...’ Maxwell turned his head quickly to
Joe. ‘What did the provosts do with Koko?’

‘Nothing. He didn’t go to the station, he
went straight home.’ Joe sensed something in Maxwell’s tone. ‘Why
do you ask?’

‘I’ll have to go and pick him up. It will be
better if I turn him over to a senior army officer than let the
provosts grab him. There’s no telling what they’ll do. I’ll take
Aki in at the same time.’

Joe eyes widened in amazement. ‘But why,
George. Why?’

The sergeant swung off the Esplanade and
braked sharply beside a cluster of men and military vehicles on the
beach. ‘Because they’re Japanese, Joe. That’s why.’

*

Dan Rivers was sitting in the middle of the
platform with the children, when Sergeant Maxwell’s ute and a US
Army military police jeep pulled up beside the provosts at the
station. He got up quickly and walked over to them.

‘Sir.’ A Negro MP sergeant saluted smartly.
He nodded towards Joe. ‘This civilian says he brought you in from
Bathurst Island, Captain. Is that so?’

‘Yes. I was shot down yesterday. What’s left
of the airfield, Sergeant?’

‘Not much, sir. The Japs really did a number
on Darwin. If you don’t need medical attention, I’d best take you
to a bush camp. Most of them are about ten miles out.’

‘Thanks, I’ll just be moment.’ Rivers turned
to Sergeant Maxwell and the provost sergeant who were engaged in a
heated conversation. Joe was looking on, saying nothing. Rivers
took Joe’s arm and led him aside. ‘What’s going on, Joe? What going
to happen to the kids?’

‘Sergeant Maxwell thinks he can get the
children out of town on a train tomorrow. He wants the provost
sergeant to release them into his care. I told him they can stay at
my house overnight. But the provost says Maxwell’s got no authority
under martial law. He says he can’t release them without direct
orders from a superior military officer.’

Rivers turned abruptly and stepped up to the
provost. ‘Sergeant, as the ranking officer here,