Territory (5 page)

There was a little girl in the park, playing with a dog.
A puppy really, half grown. Both young and exuberant. Winifred remembered the puppy she'd had as a small girl, so boisterous it would bowl her over. Life went on, didn't it. God, but she was old. So very, very old. She snapped her mind back to the present.

The lieutenant came from a wealthy family it appeared. Cattle people, a property with the rather ridiculous name of ‘Bullalalla'. Four thousand square miles no less. She'd found it impossible to believe at first.

‘Don't you mean acres?' she'd asked.

‘Nope, square miles, that's the way we measure it where I come from.'

‘But that's half the size of Wales.'

‘Is it?' He hadn't appeared particularly interested in British comparisons. ‘In the more arid areas there are stations ten, twelve thousand square miles and more,' he'd said, ‘but Bullalalla's good country, the homestead's only sixty miles from Darwin, along the Finniss River, you can double your stock on land like ours.'

Winifred had been aware of the sales pitch, but he hadn't been lying, she was sure of that. Yes, she thought as she looked out the window, Henrietta would be well looked after. And she'd be in Australia. A foreign country, so very far away. But Australia was safe, the Lieutenant had assured her. The cattle station was isolated. Far from the bombs. And that was what Winifred wanted more than anything, the safety of her grand daughter. The death of her only son had devastated her, she must protect his daughter at all costs. When Terence proposed marriage, as it was obvious he was going to, Henrietta would agonise over leaving her grandmother. Well, Winifred would convince her that she must. The next-door neighbour would do her shopping, she would say, and if necesssary she could employ a helper. That's what old people with means did, she would say, and she was not without means. She would make it easy for the girl, who was so clearly in love.

Winifred would miss Henrietta sorely, she knew it. But perhaps the absence of her grand daughter would help her to die. Since the death of her son she had longed to die, Henrietta had been the only thing keeping her going. Perhaps the loneliness would help.

She only hoped the lieutenant would be kind to Henrietta. There was a hardness behind his eyes. Perhaps it was because he was an Australian, from ‘the outback' no less. She couldn't really picture ‘the outback', but he'd spoken of it with such pride and passion. And he was a fighter pilot, they certainly needed to be hard, perhaps that was it. Winifred fought back any misgivings she might have had. Terence Galloway was the best thing that could have happened to Henrietta, she told herself. Her grand daughter would go to a safe life in a safe haven with a man who loved her.

‘Did you like him, Grandma?' Henrietta was back. ‘Did you really like him?'

He obviously hadn't proposed, Winifred thought, or Henrietta would have burst through the door announcing it. But her grand daughter's cheeks were glowing and her eyes were shining, and any tiny doubt Winifred might have had disappeared in an instant.

‘Very much,' she said. ‘And you're right, he's very handsome.'

Henrietta was the only one of the three of them, Winifred thought, who had no idea of what had gone on that afternoon.

If it were not for the company of Commandeur Pelsaert, life aboard the
Batavia
would be intolerable, Lucretia often thought.

No, not intolerable, she now decided, as she stood upon the deck looking out over the sullen ocean, the huge sails flapping idly overhead, the ship rocking gently, silent, becalmed on this strange, still sea. No, she would tolerate any hardship life could deliver so long as each day brought her closer to her beloved Boudewijn. But, amongst the deprivation and rigours of shipboard life, and the close proximity of rough and vulgar men, Lucretia blessed the companionship of Commandeur Francisco Pelsaert, a man of breeding and sensitivity.

The convoy had set sail with all the pomp and ceremony Amsterdam had to offer and, as they'd swept through the Marsdiep, the principal channel connecting the Zuider Zee to the North Sea, they had indeed presented an awesome sight. The
Batavia,
the flagship leading the convoy of eight, the grandest of them all. The most magnificent vessel ever to set sail for the East Indies. Built of seasoned oak, she was 140 feet in length, forty feet in the beam and forty feet from deck to keel. She carried 600 tons of cargo
and, within the cramped space below decks, she housed no less than 300 soldiers, passengers and crew.

But it was her decoration which made her unique. Her hull was painted bright green and gold, and around her massive stern were carved figures to ward off the evil spirits which might cause her harm. Likewise, all about the vessel were ornately carved heads and life-sized figures, watching over the ship from every vantage point, guarding her safety, and proclaiming the superstitions of the Dutch seamen. But most impressive of the carved symbols was the figurehead. Rearing from the prow of the ship, below the massive bowsprit was the Lion-of-Holland. Three times the size of a man, bright red with a golden mane, the Lion-of-Holland snarled its rage, defying the domination of the elements.

And above the
Batavia'
s gaudy magnificence there towered the three masts whose virgin white sails, as yet unblemished by the salt of the sea, embraced the wind, forever speeding them on towards the East Indies.

For all of her splendour, however, and despite the fact that she was by comparison to others a luxurious ship, any sense of comfort aboard the
Batavia
was short lived.

The convoy had barely entered the North Sea when they were beset by a violent storm, most of the ships losing sight of each other. As the
Batavia
pitched and rolled and reared and dived, the many inexperienced travellers aboard her were convinced they must drown. When the Lion-of-Holland disappeared into the waves and the bowsprit itself speared the sea, they felt the vessel must surely plunge to the bottom of the ocean never to return. But she reared back up again, like a wild horse refusing to be broken.

Like the others, Lucretia had thought she might die from the sea sickness, but she had recovered and found her sea legs far better than most. Now she weathered the storms like a seasoned sailor. She was better housed than
most too, and she knew it. The sailors slept and ate huddled amongst the twenty-eight cannons. The soldiers, some seasoned regulars, some military cadets, others conscriptees bound for national service in the colonies, were restricted to the closely confined quarters above, where there was not space enough for a man to stand upright. There they crouched for eleven hours at a stretch before being allowed their brief respite on deck. And the working-class passengers found space where they could. Only the commanding officers had cabins of their own.

In consideration of her social standing, Lucretia had been allocated an alcove which she shared with her maid, Zwaantie, and she ate with the officers in the dining room at the stern of the ship. The one grand room aboard the
Batavia,
the dining room converted to sleeping quarters at night, but during the early evening, at mealtime, the select dozen or so were seated in a civilised fashion around the large oak table.

Not that the company was civilised, Lucretia thought. With the exception of Francisco Pelsaert, she loathed the men with whom she was forced to socialise. Particularly the ship's captain, Adriaen Jacobsz. For all of his renown as an excellent sailor, and for all of his personal pretensions to intellectual superiority, Lucretia had decided upon their first meeting that the man was a pig.

Jacobsz, although a handsome man with an imposing figure, was an unashamed hedonist who ate and drank with gusto and boasted openly of his sexual exploits. Convinced of his own fatal charm, he had very early on set about to impress the aristocratic and beautiful young woman. But the harder he tried, the more Lucretia retreated behind her haughty façade, openly displaying her preference for Pelsaert's company, which further annoyed Jacobsz. As Commandeur of the fleet, Pelsaert was his superior in rank, Jacobsz accepted that, but it was quite evident both Lucretia and Pelsaert also considered him of
inferior social standing, which was an insult. He was after all the captain of the vessel. Jacobsz turned his attentions instead to Lucretia's maid, Zwaantie Hendrix, and there found instant gratification.

It irked Lucretia that her maid was conducting an affair with the detestable Jacobsz, and she grew to despise Zwaantie. She knew too that the loathsome pair were whispering obscenities about her and Pelsaert. Nothing was secret aboard the
Batavia.
The Commandeur had recently taken ill and Lucretia regularly visited him in his cabin, to take him a bowl of soup which the cook had brewed or to bathe his fevered brow. Some troublemakers amongst the men considered the Commandeur a malingerer. ‘Lying back in his cabin enjoying the trip, who does he think he is,' they said. And the lascivious rumours spread by Jacobsz and Zwaantie Hendrix did not help matters. Lucretia van den Mylen was Pelsaert's whore, they whispered, and others listened.

Well, let them talk, Lucretia thought now as she gazed up at the luffing sails, savouring the moment of calm. And let them listen. She would rise above them all, she did not need them. She had the locket to keep her company, to guard her against all evil. The symbol of Boudewijn and the love they shared nestled against her breast.

At night, Lucretia would take the locket from its concealment beneath her clothing and she would caress its face. She could not see it in the darkness, but she could feel the ridges of the mountain, and the thrust of the rays from the diamond sun. Even as she cursed Adriaen Jacobsz and his like—and there were others on board, she knew it, who lusted for her, who considered her vain and arrogant, and who would wish to degrade her—even as she cursed them all, she clung to the knowledge that each day brought her closer to Boudewijn.

The bombers were clearly visible in the early dawn light. Twenty-four of them in all, and twenty-five fighters.

But there could have been hundreds, Bernie thought, you could never tell from down here, the sky seemed full of them. Enemy planes wherever you looked, relentless and menacing. They'd been bombing the Top End military and air force installations for a whole bloody year now.

‘Fuse 2-0!' The order rang out from the command post.

‘Fuse 2-0 set!' Young Bernie Spencer, gunner with the 31st Heavy Ack-Ack, yelled in response.

‘Fire!'

Crouched beside his 3.7 heavy mobile ack-ack, dug into the ground and wedged with sandbags, Bernie and the other three gunners in the battery fired at the bombers overhead.

 

‘Enemy bombers three o'clock high.' The Wing Commander's voice sounded composed, almost detached, as he ordered his squadron to climb, preparatory to attack. But Terence Galloway, Spitfire pilot of No. 1 Fighter Wing, felt anything other than composed and detached. Adrenalin
was pumping through his body, he could see the flak of their own anti-aircraft guns, already the sky was becoming a furnace, and the dogfights hadn't even started!

Twenty thousand feet. Now! The order sounded and Terence wheeled his aircraft to dive on the bombers below.

The Jap aircraft seemed to come from nowhere. Four Zeros. They must have been taking cover in the bank of cumulus cloud to the east, Terence thought. Clever bastards.

The enemy fighters dropped their belly tanks and dived. Terence banked sharply, turned and, as two of the Zeros crossed the nose of his aircraft, fired a long burst through each. One kept diving, an angry streak of orange flame streaming from its fuselage. It was out of commission and heading for home, Terence doubted it would make it. The other Zero turned, banked, and the dogfight was on.

Terence was aware that all about him the air was an inferno of machine-gun and cannon fire and, amongst the haze of smoke, he kept a lookout peripherally for any other enemy fighter attack, but his main focus was concentrated on the Zero he'd chosen. Or the Zero who had chosen him, he thought as they both wheeled and climbed and turned and fired, then dived and rose again to resume the deadly fight. Once, they were so close he could see the Jap's face. A good pilot, Terence thought. But not good enough. One of us will die, my friend, and it won't be me!

Terence was revelling in the thrill of the chase. This was what he'd been missing, he thought. This was what he lived for, what he was prepared to die for. But not today. Oh no, not today!

The Jap had missed his opportunity. For an instant Terence had thought it was he himself who had lost. He heard a series of thuds and felt his plane jump. He'd been hit. But not badly. And the Jap had lost concentration. Perhaps thinking he'd won, he'd been slow on his turn. There he was! In Terence's sights long enough for him to rake the whole fuselage from tail to nose. He watched as
the orange flame streaked from the tail of the Zero. Then he watched as the aircraft plunged to the ground.

 

‘Cease fire!'

Young Bernie Spencer flopped back against the sandbags, sweat pouring from his brow. The sun was barely up in the sky and yet it was stinking hot. But then he wasn't in Adelaide now, this was the Northern Territory and it was early March, what did he expect? His rotting shirt clung wet to his back and his Bombay bloomer shorts were grimy with the red outback soil.

After four months at the Bullalalla station gunsite, Bernie was accustomed to the discomfort, but it was the boredom which grated with him and the other blokes. Not this morning, though. This morning had been a beauty. This morning they hadn't sat around taking potshots at a Jap reconnaissance plane travelling too high to be bothered by the ack-ack. They'd had a say in things this morning.

One of the lads, another gunner, stood up and cheered, waving a fist to the sky and the retreating aircraft. Then the whole of the battery stood and applauded, over twenty in all, and nineteen-year-old Bernie Spencer joined in. Well, they wouldn't be whingeing about the Top End being the arsehole of the world today, he thought. No bellyaching today about the mossies and the ants and the heat and the flies, and why they hadn't been sent overseas to fight the war. Today they'd served a purpose. Two bombers, on fire, had headed out to sea, the rest had turned tail and fled. The Jap raid had been a dismal failure. Between the Spits above and the ack-ack below they'd sent the yellow peril home with their tails between their legs. ‘Go home, you bastards!' Bernie yelled along with the others.

 

Terence wanted more. But the fight was over. The bombers had departed. He followed them long enough to see one
still burning in the sea just outside the port of Darwin, along with six enemy fighter aircraft. Then he set his sights for home.

 

Bernie shielded his eyes. ‘Here he comes!' he shouted to his mates as he watched the Spit emerge from the haze of battle and fly towards the homestead over the ridge ten miles south of the gunsite. All the men stood and cheered, waving their hats. They'd seen the pilot do it before. Often. For no apparent reason he'd buzz the homestead. They didn't know why he did it, what his connection with Bullalalla cattle station was, but they admired his antics, he'd helped fill in the tedium of many a long day.

 

‘Here he comes!' Unwittingly echoing young Bernie Spencer, Jock Galloway's voice boomed through the homestead as he opened the front door from the verandah and yelled with all the force his lungs could muster. ‘Everybody outside! At the double! He's coming!'

This was the moment old Jock had been waiting for. He'd stood on the verandah for the past hour, mesmerised by the smouldering sky and the cacophony of artillery fire. He knew that, inside the house, Margaret, Henrietta and Charlotte would be glancing nervously from the windows wishing it were over, and Nellie and Pearl would be whimpering with terror, as Aborigines always did at the sound of machine gunfire. But they should have been standing here with him, outside on the verandah, glorying in the spectacle of it all.

Every military fibre in Jock's body responded to the sight and the sound and the smell of warfare. But he was no mere spectator, he was a contributor to the entire exercise, the armed forces were on his property. A battery to the north, and to the south an airstrip and RAAF base. Following the bombing of Darwin in February the previous year, and the consequent destruction of any
RAAF strength in the north-western area, the air force had built their Top End airfields with one simple strategy in mind—dispersal. And Jock Galloway had been only too eager to offer to the military and the RAAF any area they chose of the four thousand square miles of Bullalalla cattle station. As a veteran of the Great War, he was proud to be of assistance; he'd declared, it was his bounden duty to King and Country.

But his proudest moment was to hand right now. The moment when Terry would salute him. Fresh from battle, his son would circle the homestead. It was a triumphant tribute shared between father and son and, each time, Jock felt his chest would burst with pride. The boy was a chip off the old block, all right.

‘At the double!' he bellowed again. ‘Outside! He's here!' And, belying his sixty-one years, he bounded down the several steps from the verandah with the agility of a man half his age.

His wife Margaret, and Charlotte his daughter, quickly joined him. But Terence's young English wife reluctantly followed in their wake.

It wasn't that Terence's antics particularly worried Henrietta, but she failed to see why Nellie and Pearl must be forced to endure something which so obviously terrified them.

‘It's all right,' she assured them as she always did. And Nellie gave her customary tight smile and nod, grateful for the assurance, but the whites of her eyes shone nervously in her normally placid, brown face and she kept a tight hold on her twelve-year-old daughter's hand.

‘Could you not tell your father to let them stay inside?' Henrietta had asked Terence in the early days of his aerobatics when his father had taken to demanding that the entire household stand in the baking heat to applaud his son. ‘Nellie and Pearl are absolutely terrified, every single time.'

But Terence hadn't appeared particularly concerned. ‘It'll do them good,' he'd shrugged. Then by way of explanation, ‘Teach them they can't run away every time they're frightened. Besides,' he'd added, realising his answer had not satisfied her, ‘you try telling Dad to do anything.'

She'd had to accept that. It was true, nobody told Jock Galloway to do anything. But she'd found it unsettling to later discover that, after buzzing the homestead, Terence took delight in dive-bombing the native camp several miles away. It was the start of the dry season and the Aboriginal stockmen and their families had moved into the tin huts and humpies there preparatory to the annual muster. ‘They ran like scared rabbits,' she'd overheard Terence boast to his father one day, and it had chilled her to hear him say it. Had he changed, she was beginning to wonder, or had there always been a cruel streak in him which she had failed to recognise in London?

Three months in the Northern Territory had opened Henrietta's eyes to many things, not least of all the gradual metamorphosis in the man she had married.

Now she stood with the others, fifty yards from the house as Jock always instructed, and, hand shielding her eyes from the blinding sun, she gazed up at the approaching aircraft.

The Spitfire circled the homestead three times, as it always did, lower and lower each time. Then it ascended, turned and dive-bombed. Involuntarily, Henrietta wanted to duck, or to turn away, even to run, but she had learned to stand her ground and watch, just as Margaret and Charlotte did.

Margaret Galloway, although subservient to her husband, was as strong as old Jock in her own way, her back as ramrod straight as his, her thin, weathered visage as stern. Charlotte too, Terence's older sister, once handsome, was hardened by the living conditions and the harsh northern sun. Not yet thirty-one years of age, her thick
hair, always pulled back in a practical ponytail, was iron grey, and her face was as rugged as a man's. Both were outback women, tough and resilient like the landscape itself. They had adapted to the adversities of life in the Territory, and Henrietta supposed that it was her duty to mould herself the same way, although she couldn't imagine how she was to go about it.

The Spitfire dropped like lead from the sky and was coming straight for them. Was it her imagination, Henrietta thought for an instant, or was it flying lower than usual? She glanced briefly to her side. Old Jock's arm was raised in salute and Margaret and Charlotte continued to gaze ahead without even shielding the sun from their eyes. The roar of the engine was horrendous. Behind them, the windows of the homestead rattled, and the branches of the impressive lemon-scented gums which Jock's father had planted as saplings and which lined the drive to the house, swayed and swirled as they did in a gale.

The aircraft seemed all but upon them when young Pearl broke away from her mother and ran shrieking towards the verandah. Nellie stared down at the ground, longing to put her hands over her ears, visibly trembling, tormented by the scream of the engine.

Then, as quickly as an eagle having swooped successfully upon its prey, the Spitfire was back up in the air and Henrietta could have sworn she'd heard Terence laughing. Or was it Jock? Jock was certainly laughing now. Laughing and waving proudly to his son. Henrietta put a reassuring arm around Nellie, and Nellie shamefacedly beckoned Pearl back to her side.

Terence was pleased with himself. It had been a particularly good dive, he thought, barely fifty feet from the ground, he could swear. He decided against a further show of aerobatics, the aircraft was displaying a distinct and repetitive shudder, he'd better get back to base and have them check the damage he'd copped from the Zero. He
briefly contemplated dive-bombing the native camp, but decided against that too. The muster was well under way now, only women and children would be there. The stockmen would be out bush, rounding up the cattle on the plains, penning them in the bush stockyards, sorting the steers from the breeding stock and the new season's calves from their mothers.

The first time Terence had buzzed the homestead and the camp he'd been showing off. It put the fear of God into the native stockmen, he knew it, but he was just playing a game, a boyish prank, that was all. But when his father had called his performance ‘a salute of triumph', he'd quickly changed his views. The old man was right of course, it was a victory celebration. Hell, if anyone knew about the triumphs of battle, it was Jock Galloway.

He descended and circled the homestead one more time, smiling proudly at the sight of his father once again standing stiffly to attention. He noted with irritation that Henrietta was comforting the two blacks. He'd told her not to in the past and she was disregarding his orders, as she did on occasions when she disagreed with his views. It annoyed him. Not that he wished to break Henrietta's spirit. It was her spirit which had first attracted him. She was such an interesting contradiction, such a mixture of strength and naivety. Like a healthy young mare, Terence often thought, not a racehorse, she was not elegant enough for a racehorse. High-spirited as she was, she lacked the neuroses that accompanied a racehorse's inbreeding, and that was fortunate. But she possessed all the natural beauty, all the strength and enthusiasm of a healthy young mare. And she was a chestnut, what's more. Terence had always been fond of chestnuts.

His annoyance faded and he felt a wave of affection for his young wife. He would admonish her for fussing over Nellie and Pearl when he got home, certainly, but he would not round on her. In time he would teach her and
she would become accustomed to the ways of the outback, he had no wish to change the essential Henrietta. God forbid that his wife should grow bitter like his sister Charlotte, or worse still, humourless like his mother. Much as Terence respected his mother, he was the first to admit that Margaret Galloway singularly lacked a sense of humour. He turned his aircraft and headed south towards the base. A beer with Hans and the boys and an exchange of exploits and tactics was the next pleasurable item on the agenda.