CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

There was no joy in Dick and Helen Sharkey’s home over the holidays. Their sorrow at spending their first Christmas without Mike was only compounded by Dan’s inexplicable absence. Faith came home from the coast late on December 23^rd half expecting Dan to be at the house when she arrived. Her disappointment only grew the next day, when alone in the office, she waited in vain for a telephone call from him or to see him show up unannounced at headquarters.

Faith spent Christmas morning either listening for Dan’s knock on the door or looking out the window hoping to see a taxi pull up outside the house. At midday, Helen’s Christmas dinner was ready to be served. An hour and a half later, the family sat down without Dan to eat the two roast chickens and all the trimmings which she had so painstakingly prepared. In the late afternoon, Faith walked to the telephone box at the end of the street and tried to place a call to the hospital in Melbourne but the operator said that because of it being Christmas, it would be impossible to get a trunk call through.

Knowing Faith was alone in the liaison office between Christmas and New Year, Lyle Hunter phoned in the day after Boxing Day to see how she was doing. When he asked after Captain Rivers, Faith told him Dan had failed to show up. Lyle said he wasn’t really surprised and told her he would return to Brisbane that night. The next day they had lunch together at Lennons.

‘When you came down to Point Danger and told me that you were still in love with him, I was going to say something then.’ Lyle said gently. ‘But I didn’t because I thought you might think I was attacking him behind his back. I told you once before that a Navajo never commits himself to anyone outside his own people. He may seem like anyone else, Faith, but he isn’t. He’s an Indian. They’re different from us. They’re still primitive people. They have no integrity or any sense of values. I knew he would let you down in the end. That’s why I’ve always been prepared to wait.’

Lyle was very persuasive but Faith remained unconvinced. She phoned the Melbourne hospital again but could get no information because the nursing sister she had met on Dan’s ward was off for a few days. It was the day before New Year, when Faith finally spoke to her. It was only then that Faith began to realize that perhaps Lyle was right about Dan after all.

‘He did leave for Brisbane three days before Christmas, Miss Brodie, the nursing sister said. ‘At least, that’s where he said he was going. It’s funny though, when it came time to leave the hospital he seemed a bit overcome by it all. It happens a lot with long term patients. It’s something to do with being faced with everyday responsibilities again. I spoke with the doctor after Dan left and he said the problem would be more severe for someone with Dan’s cultural background.’

‘Did he come back to the hospital, Sister?’

‘No he didn’t. Apparently he turned up at the US Logistics Headquarters in Sydney the day after he left here. He presented his hospital and service discharge papers and asked to be transported home. ’

Faith drew a short sharp breath. ‘And?’

‘Sydney checked with us. All his papers were in order. He was entitled to immediate transportation back to the United States. They said they would put him on a flight leaving for American Samoa and Honolulu the next day. And that was yesterday.’

*

Lyle Hunter made certain Faith had no time to dwell on the disappointment she felt at Dan’s uncharacteristic behavior. During the months between Christmas and Easter, his attentiveness towards her knew no bounds. And Faith couldn’t deny, even to herself, that she didn’t thoroughly enjoy the constant stream of gifts he showered her with, or the pleasure of her relationship with a man who made her feel so special.

Major Hunter even became a regular caller at the Sharkey’s house. When he came to pick up Faith in his staff car in the evenings, he made sure he never arrived empty handed. With so many things still in short supply or on ration in Australia, he always brought a particularly scarce or sought after item which it seemed were only available to American officers. And because of the major’s obvious affection for Faith and his thoughtfulness and generosity toward the household, the reservations Helen and Dick once held for Lyle soon disappeared.

One morning in late April, Lyle returned to the liaison office after a lengthy meeting on another floor. As soon as he came in he signaled to Faith to join him in his private office. When she entered the room he quickly closed the door and took her in his arms.

‘I’ve just received my transfer,’ he said, grinning from ear to ear. ‘I fly back to the States in two weeks. I’ve been assigned as a senior liaison officer to the office of the US Army Chief of Staff in the Pentagon. I should make Lieutenant Colonel within six months.’

‘That’s wonderful, Lyle,’ Faith said happily.

‘Make it really wonderful, Faith. Say you’ll marry me.’

‘Are you sure you still want me to?’

‘You know I am.’

Faith didn’t respond right away. Then, eventually, she smiled and said. ‘Then I accept.’

He pulled her to him and gently kissed her. ‘And we’ll be married in Albany. A real family wedding.’

Just for a second Faith looked apprehensive.

Lyle noticed her concern. ‘Don’t worry, my darling. My family is your family now. And they’re all going to love you.’ He released her and began thinking out loud. ‘Now, it will be a couple of months at least before you can get a berth on a ship. It’s difficult to get one at all these days, but I should be able to pull a few strings. From the west coast I’ll arrange for you to fly direct to New York. I’ll be waiting for you at the airport. From there it will only take us a couple of hours or so to drive up to Albany.’

‘What about permits and immigration and things?’

‘No problem. You’re no ordinary war bride, Faith. You’ll come to the United States as a visitor on a British Passport. Once were married you’ll have automatic American citizenship.’

‘You seem to have all the details worked out, already Lyle?’

He smiled. ‘I’ve had a lot of time to think about it.’

‘I know, ’ Faith said softly. She reached out and took his hand. ‘And thank you for being so patient.’

He lifted her hand to his mouth and kissed it. ‘We’re going to be apart about three or four months including the weeks you’ll be at sea. I hope the time passes quickly.’ Suddenly it was Lyle who became apprehensive. ‘My God, you won’t change your mind before your ship leaves will you?’

Faith drew him closer and kissed his lips. ‘No Lyle,’ she said softly, ‘I promise you, I won’t do that.’

*

The Walrus’s engine ticked over at low revs, slowly pushing her bulbous bow through the emerald-green water of Mullet Bay on pristine North Goulburn Island in the Arafura Sea. The beautiful tropical island, two hundred miles east of Darwin and twenty miles north of the Arnhem Land coast, had always been one of Joe’s favorite places, with its pristine white beaches and warm waters teeming with fish.

As Joe inched the old ketch closer in to the shore, Weasel and Monday stood on the bow waiting for Joe’s signal to drop the anchor. It was a cloudless sunny afternoon in late April, the start of the dry season, and Joe thought the sheltered, tranquil bay had never looked more beautiful. It was the first time he had been to the island since taking over the Walrus, and it would be the first time he had seen Jim Twig, the island’s only resident white man in three years. Twig had lived with an Aboriginal woman in a bark hut near the beach for as long as Joe could remember.

Twig had once told Joe that he had been a machinist in Sydney but when he lost his job at the start of the Great Depression, he had stowed away on a freighter bound for the Dutch East Indies, in order to avoid the humiliation of depending on government relief. Twig said that when the vessel passed by North Goulburn Island, he knew he’d found his own piece of paradise and he jumped overboard and swam ashore.

Joe gave the signal and the anchor splashed down into ten feet of clear water. Weasel and Monday watched it take hold in the sand, then began tying down the sails and preparing the yacht to lay at anchor overnight. Joe went below and reappeared moments later with a bottle of gin in his hand, then lowered the dinghy to row ashore. When the little boat reached shallow water, Joe leaned on the oars and looked up and down the beach. He saw no one. But knowing Twig’s aversion to strangers, he knew the approach of the Walrus would not have gone unnoticed and that hidden eyes would be watching him from the foliage above the beach. Joe gave one more tug on the oars and when the bow of the dinghy skimmed onto the sand he jumped out and pulled it up to the high water mark.

‘Jim Twig,’ Joe shouted. ‘It’s me, Joe Brodie.’ Joe took the liquor bottle from the dinghy and raised it high in the air. One thing Joe had learned on his rare visits to North Goulburn was that Jim Twig liked a drink. Most of the other bare essentials Twig needed in life were available at the mission settlement at nearby South Goulburn where he often traded work for goods and supplies. Joe called out Jim Twig’s name again and a thin, near-naked man emerged from the trees and cautiously walked down toward the dinghy. From a distance he looked like an Aborigine, but close up Jim Twig’s intense blue eyes peered out through a mop of shoulder length ratty brown hair. He grinned and stuck out his hand.

‘Good to see you, Joe. I didn’t think it was you.’ The hermit nodded his head toward the Walrus. ‘What are you doing with an old scow like that after a beauty like Faraway?’

‘Faraway’s resting on the bottom of the Gulf of Carpentaria, Jim. This ketch belongs to the Army. I’m a soldier now, at least while the war’s on, anyway.’

‘And when can we expect it to end?’

Joe shrugged. ‘Who knows, Jim?’ He handed the bottle of gin to Twig. His eyes lit up when he read the label, '"Gilbey’s London Dry Gin". Long time since I’ve seen anything like this.’ He grinned. ‘Let go on up to the hut.’

The bark hut sat in a clearing in the bush about a hundred yards from the beach. Maggie woman was sitting in the shade of a tree outside. She recognized Joe and smiled up at him as the two men approached. Inside the hut, Twig pulled up two bamboo stools to an old tea chest which served as a table, unscrewed the cap on the gin bottle and took a long pull.

‘What brings you here, Joe?’ Twig asked, as he passed the gin to Joe.

‘An RAAF Catalina reported seeing a sailing boat here about a month ago. The crew passed the information on to the Army. The Walrus is attached to a special Army unit which investigates sightings of unidentified vessels along the Top End coast. But usually the boats have moved on by the time we get to the scene so it’s a bit of a lost cause. But anyway Jim, what can you tell me about that boat?

‘It was an old sloop. Came into the bay during a storm. Stayed for three days.’

‘What was her name?’

‘She had no markings at all.’

‘Did anyone come ashore?’

‘Yeah, they beached the boat so they could work on her between the tides. They’d hit the shoals north of here during the storm and bent her drive shaft.’

‘Who’s they?’

‘Two men, big blokes. ’

‘Were they foreigners or Australians?’

‘Australians.’

‘What were their names?’

‘Twig took another gulp of gin and rubbed his jaw. ‘One of them was called Nick, I think or maybe Mick. I can’t remember the other one at all.’

‘What about last names?’

‘They never said.’

What did they look like? Did they have long hair and beards?’

‘Yes. Same as all the sea-tramps that stop in at this island.’

‘Where were they heading?’

Twig shrugged his shoulders. ‘No idea. They never said anything about that either. I don’t think it mattered much to them which way they went. Sea tramps usually just go to wherever the wind is blowing.’

‘Did they look like croc-shooters?’

‘They could have been, I suppose.’

Joe began to lose some of his interest in the visitors to the island. He took a nip of gin and laid the bottle back down on the table. ‘Did they manage to repair the drive shaft?’

‘They didn’t. But I did. When I told them used I to be a machinist, they said they would give me twenty pounds if I could fix it. They only had a few tools but I managed to get the shaft out. Then I built a fire on the beach, heated it up and straightened it out as well as I could by eyeball. As it turned out, I did a pretty good job. When we put it back in and started the motor there was practically no vibration at all.’

‘Which way did they go?’

‘East, maybe heading for the Gulf of Carpentaria. ’

‘And you’re sure the boat had no markings at all?’

‘No. No name or numbers or anything like that.’

‘Would you recognize it if you saw it again?’

‘Oh, yeah. It’s funny, she was a scruffy old boat, ragged sails, rigging all rusting and with most of her paint peeling off. All except on her transom, that is. It had been painted fairly recently. A bright yellow. You could see it a mile away. I suppose they started to repaint the whole boat, then gave up. Sea tramps are like that. They start things but never finish them.’

‘Maybe they painted over her name for some reason?’

‘Could be, I suppose ’ Twig took another long swallow from the bottle then offered it to Joe. Joe shook his head. ‘Another funny thing about that boat. I noticed it had a short wave radio. They had it on a lot of the time. Don’t see many old boats around here with gear like that.’

‘Short wave radio’ Suddenly Joe’s interest was renewed. ‘That means they can receive and transmit over very long distances. They’d know if anyone was looking for them. No wonder the boat has no markings. Those blokes are probably spies. Anyway, whoever heard of a couple of sea-tramps having twenty pounds in cash to pay for running repairs.’

‘I never ashully saw the money, Joe,’ Twig was beginning to feel the gin and slur his words. ‘Since the bombing started in the Top End, no misshun boats or trading vessels visit these islands anymore. So I got no need for money.’

‘You mean you fixed their boat for free?’

‘Hell, no. I told ‘em I’d trade my time for somethin’ I could use. There’s a war on you know. Who knows, the bloody Nips could sail into the bay any day at all.’

‘So what did you get?’

Twig got up from his stool and rummaged around underneath a straw mattress on the floor. When he stood up he brandished a handgun. Joe’s heart quickened when he saw it. It was a Walther P5 semi-automatic. It was identical to the gun the Horan brothers had stolen off Faraway before she went down. Joe stood up quickly and grabbed it from Twig’s hand and examined it. Sure enough the letters, BB, his father’s initials, were engraved in the steel at the bottom of the grip.

*

By mid-May there were almost a thousand POW’s crammed into the two Japanese compounds at the prison camp at Cowra, which had been designed to house just five hundred. The total strength of the Militia guarding them, and the prisoners in the Italian compounds, was just over one hundred men. Still, the Australian military had not supplied all the guards with rifles and there were no machine guns on the perimeter fence at all. Taking all this into account, Yakimoto laid his plans for the mass breakout patiently and carefully.

While he concentrated on the overall strategy himself, Yakimoto delegated specific areas of responsibility to subordinates. The most hardened and proficient non-commissioned officers were ordered to gradually and unobtrusively get their men into such a state of readiness, that when the time came, the breakout could take place at a moment’s notice.

Yakimoto’s instructions to the NCO’s were clear. If the operation was to succeed, all facets of training and preparations for the escape must be accomplished without raising the suspicions of prison guards, and the specific details of the escape must be withheld from the rank and file until the very last moment. Yakimoto was particularly concerned that the sprinkling of Koreans and Formosans held in one of the two Japanese compounds might present a security risk and told his subordinates to kill anyone who they suspected might betray them.

Soon after Yakimoto had told Koko he must postpone his own escape, Koko became privy to most aspects of the mass escape plan and even became an essential part of it. Because of his fluent English, he was assigned to teaching the NCO’s a few words of basic English which might prove helpful during the breakout, and he was told to report anything of interest he heard the guards discussing. While Koko hoped he would never be put to the test of having to decide whether or not to report anything critical that he might overhear, he was relatively comfortable about the teaching duties. After all, that was the price he had to pay for his freedom and the chance to implement his own plans.

About twenty Japanese NCO’s each took on a particular training task, from conducting daily exercise routines to ensure the men were physically fit, to gradually building armories of crude but lethal weapons fashioned from kitchen knives, forks, hammers, and garden and carpentry tools. Others worked directly with Yakimoto, planning how the prisoners would scale the high wire fences and overpower the guards and seize their weapons for the assault on the Infantry Training Centre.

There was no looking back now for Koko. The only thing that might make him change his mind about escaping would be word from Faith and Joe that the Horan bothers had been brought to justice. Until that happened there was just no decision to make at all.