*
Koko had crossed the Gulf of Carpentaria in
the same way as he had sailed up the New South Wales coast. He had
stubbornly sailed on throughout the heavy weather, often lashing
himself to the helm to prevent being washed overboard. But towards
the end of the crossing, the weather had improved and he crammed on
more sail so as to make his landfall in daylight. He had been
overjoyed when the craggy peaks of the English Company’s Islands
had risen up out of the sea in the early afternoon and had made
directly for the secure anchorage off Malay Road.
As soon as he was safely anchored, Koko
opened a tin of corned beef and wolfed it down, forking it straight
from the can into his mouth. When he’d finished, he opened a second
tin but ate it more leisurely, then he lay down to get his first
real sleep in almost sixty hours. The moment he hit the bunk, his
eyes closed and he began to drift away, free from fear, the angry
sea, and frightening hallucinations. The weather had cleared
completely so there was no need to close the forward hatch or put
in the washboards to close off the companionway
.
During the few moments before sleep
came, Koko planned the next day. As soon as it was light he would
continue on westward. He had no charts now, but he was in familiar
waters and could make the missionary settlement on Elcho Island
before nightfall. Koko fell asleep wishing he had stayed on the
island when
Faraway
had called
there with Joe, Faith and the children from Croker Island. He
thought of how much pain and anguish it would have saved him, but
he realized too, that everything was so much clearer in
hindsight.
It seemed he had only just dozed off when he
heard a bump on the side of the boat. He ignored it but a moment
later he heard another. Then he thought he heard small splashes in
the water outside and one side of the boat seemed to dip as if
weight had been placed on the gunwale. But he ignored that too and
buried his face down into the bunk. Strange sounds and odd
sensations were common to sailors deprived of sleep for long
periods of time and if he was hallucinating again, well, it didn’t
matter now he was safely anchored.
It was only when he felt the glare of a
powerful torch shining directly into his eyes that he knew for
certain something was terribly wrong. To his horror he realized
that someone else was aboard the boat and standing directly over
him. In the glow of the torch, his terrified eyes saw the intruder
was a little man with a ferret-like face who held the blade of a
knife against his throat. Then he heard the ferret-faced man cry
out in amazement.
‘God Almighty, Joe. Look at this. We’ve got
ourselves a bloody Jap.’
*
‘Bloody hell, Koko,’ Joe’s curse sounded more
like an accusation. ‘It’s pretty hard to believe that a mass
breakout like that could have happened at Cowra and there were
hundreds of prisoners killed. Look, we’ve probably got better
access to world radio news on this boat than John Curtin has got at
the Lodge. But we’ve heard nothing at all about it.’
After the shock of finding Koko aboard
the sloop, Joe and Weasel were sitting in stunned amazement in the
main cabin of the
Walrus
as
Koko’s story unfolded
.
Monday
sat perched on the top step of the companionway staring down at
them, wide-eyed, and trying hard to comprehend what was going on.
Weasel sat without saying a word, listening intently to everything
Joe and Koko said.
‘It’s all true,’ Koko said. He was so tired
he could hardly keep his eyes open. ‘The government probably want
to keep it all quiet because of the risk of the Japanese taking it
out on Australians in POW camps in Singapore and Batavia.’
Joe raised a floorboard of the cabin sole and
lifted a pint of Sergeant Wilson’s private stock out of the cool
water in the bilge. ‘Well, it all sounds crazy to me,’ he said as
he uncapped the bottle. He took a long swallow then passed the
bottle around the table. ‘The only thing that’s crazier is you
escaping with them, then stealing that boat and sailing up
here.’
‘You don’t know what it’s like being kept
penned up in a place like Cowra, Joe,’ Koko said softly. ‘It was
twice as bad for me than any of the Japanese prisoners. I’m as
Australian as you are. You try and imagine what it’s like being a
POW in your own country.’
‘But you should have stuck it out. This war
will be over in a year, perhaps a damn sight less. What you did was
stupid, Koko. Don’t you realize that?’
‘After Faith told me about those
bastards on
Groote Eylandt
Lady
, getting out of Cowra and getting up here was all
I cared about. Have they been caught yet?’
‘No. But they might have been if it wasn’t
for you. Because we were ordered to intercept you we lost the best
chance we’ve ever had of getting them.’
Suddenly Koko seemed to be wide awake and
alert. ‘But where are they? Are they close?’
‘They were.’ Joe took another mouthful
of beer then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘We were
just three or four days behind them. We’ll be five or six by the
time we get back to Gove. And now we’ve got you and that sloop to
contend with, headquarters will probably tell us to give up looking
for the
Groote Eylandt Lady
all together.’
Koko lowered his eyes. ‘And what are you
going to do, Joe. About me, I mean?’
‘I have to radio in and report we’ve taken
you and the stolen boat into custody.’
‘What will happen then?’
‘I don’t know. They’ll want
a full report on you and the boat. I’ll tell them I know you
personally and that you’re not operating a spy boat. But when I
tell them you’re an Australian Japanese who escaped in the big
Cowra POW camp breakout that no one even knows about, and that you
were crazy enough to sail all the way up from Sydney in a stolen
boat to join the hunt for the
Groote
Eylandt Lady
, they’ll probably think that
I’m the crazy one and send another boat out to bring in the
Walrus
so they can put
me in the loony bin.’
Joe looked at Koko. His eyelids were closed.
Joe smiled and ran a hand through his friend’s hair. ‘Come on mate,
you’d better get some shuteye. I’ll tell you what we’re doing after
I’ve been in contact with Darwin and after you’ve had a good
night’s sleep. You can crawl into my bunk.’ Joe pointed to the
ketch’s aft cabin. ‘It’s in there.’
*
Koko awoke to the loud
rumbling of an engine. For a few moments he was unsure where he was
until his head cleared. Light was streaming into a porthole and he
realized he must have slept the clock around. He climbed out of
Joe’s bunk. When the cabin floor heaved under his feet he realized
the
Walrus
was
underway and he hurried into the main cabin where he found Weasel,
mug of tea in hand, monitoring the radio equipment.
Weasel looked up and
smiled. ‘Morning, mate. How about a
cup of
tea?’
‘Yes, thanks. Where’s Joe?’
‘He’s up on deck. Go on up. I’ll bring your
tea when its ready.’
Koko clambered up the companionway into the
cockpit. Joe stood at the helm. He grinned at Koko. ‘Good morning.
Just like the old days, eh?’
Koko nodded his head and looked around
him. The sky was clear and the seas were slight. The wind had
fallen off and backed around to the south. What little was left of
it was coming directly over the bow at five or six knots. He looked
up at the masts .The
Walrus
was carrying no sail at all, plowing through the water under
power at full throttle.
Koko’s eyes scanned a full three hundred and
sixty degrees over the empty ocean. ‘Where are we?’ he asked.
‘What’s happening?’
‘I radioed Darwin soon after you turned in an
gave them a full report,’ Joe said. ‘An hour later they got back to
me. They didn’t mention the Cowra escape so they must know all
about it. They were a bit excited about you, though. They told me
to turn the stolen boat over to civilian authorities and take you
to the closest Army outpost.’
‘And where’s that?
‘Borroloola, on the MacArthur River.’
‘Is that where we’re heading?’
Joe nodded. ‘We left the anchorage last night
well before midnight.’
‘How far south are we now?
‘About thirty five miles north-east of Groote
Eylandt.’
‘Why didn’t they tell you to take me to the
flying boat station there?’
‘You don’t know the Army, Koko. They probably
haven’t told the RAAF about the breakout at Cowra yet. They won’t
want you talking to anyone but themselves.’
‘Well, they can’t interrogate me at
Borroloola. There can’t be much there. It’s a million miles from
anywhere.’
‘There used to be a twenty-five man Nackeroo
section there last year. But it’s pretty well closed down like most
of the remote outposts. Now there’s just three blokes and they’re
leaving before the wet closes the road down to Mount Isa. Darwin
said they would leave as soon as we get there and they’d take you
with them.’
Koko turned away and looked out sadly over
the sea.
‘I have no choice in the matter, Koko,’ Joe
said after a few moments. There’s nothing else I can do. I’m a
soldier. I have to follow orders.’
‘I understand.’ Koko turned back around
and faced Joe. ‘What about
Chinook?
’
‘I radioed the police sergeant in Gove
Harbor and told him to let the Cruising Yacht Club in Sydney know
the boat has been found. He said he'd get some locals to sail her
back to Gove.'
‘What do you think they’ll do with me,
Joe?’
‘I’m not sure. But I expect they’ll send you
back to Cowra after they’ve interrogated you.’
Koko breathed in sharply. ‘I don’t think I
could stand being locked up again, Joe. I thought I could just hide
on this godforsaken coast until the war ended. I wanted to try and
track down the Horan bothers. My hatred for them was the only thing
that kept me going at that hellhole at Cowra. Seeing them pay for
what they did to my mother was the only thing that made me want to
go on living.’
There was a awkward silence in which Joe
could find no words of solace for his friend. It was broken by
Weasel when he climbed up the companionway carrying a mug of tea
and a stack of sandwiches.
‘Joe and I know exactly how you feel, mate,’
Weasel said. ‘What with what they did to your mother, then Joe, and
the beating they gave me in Borroloola, I reckon they’ve got a real
thrashing coming to them when we catch up with them.’
Koko looked quickly from Weasel to Joe. ‘What
does he mean, Joe?’
‘He means we may all get our chance
yet, Koko,’ Joe said grimly.
‘
A few days ago they were
reported heading to Borroloola with croc skins. We were on our way
there when we were sent north to intercept you.’
Koko’s eyes widened. ‘Will we still get there
in time, Joe?’
Joe shrugged. ‘We don’t know for sure if the
report was true, or when they’ll reach the MacArthur River if it
is. But they’re not there yet. Darwin told the Nackeroos in
Borroloola to keep an eye open for them and to contact us if they
show up. There’s been no radio message yet so there’s still
hope.
*
A uniformed chauffeur holding a chalk board
bearing Faith’s name stood outside the Customs & Immigration
office on Pier 18 on The Embarcadero, the wide driveway servicing
the downtown ocean terminal on San Francisco Bay. When Faith
identified herself, the chauffeur led her and her porter to a long
black De-Soto parked outside the building which bore the name St.
Francis Hotel in gold lettering on the front door panel.
Faith barely had time to settle down in the
back of the limousine and take in a few sights of the city centre
before the car pulled up in front of an imposing building at the
corner of Geary and Powell Streets. One look told Faith that the St
Francis, which occupied an entire city block must be one of San
Francisco’s very finest hotels. The moment she alighted from the
car, a bell-captain appeared and led her through the lobby to
reception, then up to a sumptuous air-conditioned room on the tenth
floor overlooking Union Square, a leafy green oasis in a sea of
sophisticated steel and concrete buildings.
Like her cabin when the
Chesapeake Bay
reached Honolulu, the
room was bedecked with flowers accompanied by fond notes from Lyle.
Sitting on a writing table beside the window was a large wicker
basket containing fresh fruit, chocolates and a bottle of French
champagne. There was a note attached to it from Mr Plimpton, the
hotel manager, welcoming her to San Francisco, hoping she would
enjoy her stay, and advising that the hotel travel service on the
mezzanine floor was holding a first class airline ticket to New
York for her.
After a bellboy had brought up her luggage,
Faith stood at the window looking down at the hustle and bustle of
downtown traffic and the hordes of pedestrians on the streets
surrounding Union Square. A huge billboard in the square with the
famous caricature of Uncle Sam urged Americans to invest in war
bonds. Suddenly, Australia seemed a million miles away and she felt
very alone in this crowded unfamiliar city on the other side of the
world. Her thoughts turned to Joe, and Koko, and Helen and Bill
Sharkey. She was wondering how they all were and what they were
doing when the telephone rang. She crossed to the bedside
table.
‘Hello.’
‘Faith, it’s so wonderful to hear your voice
again. I just heard an hour ago that the ship had berthed. Welcome
to America. And before I forget, I must tell you your husband-to-be
has just made Lieutenant Colonel.’