Flight of the Jabiru (6 page)

“Australia is a long way from here,” Walter said, missing her already. But then he thought Australia was also a long way from the war in Europe and he worried about her every day, even though they were relatively safe in England. “But of course, it's better than staying here.” He glanced at the gray walls of the visitor's room. “You'd be free and doing what you enjoy. What do you think of the idea? You are going to accept the offer, aren't you?”

“I was torn ... at first because obviously I didn't want to be so far away from you and I didn't want to let my pupils down. But this morning I received a letter from Richard Dunn, firing me for being charged with a violent crime. It doesn't matter that I'm innocent.”

Walter frowned in anguish. He'd felt so helpless through all of this. Lord Hornsby had avoided him for days and then sent Bart Collins, a trainer, to tell him that he would not, and could not, discuss the court case with him, and that he was not to approach him, or he'd lose his position at Fitzroy. “I'm so sorry, Lara.”

“I know, Dad. At first I was angry when I heard the offer. It felt like I was being banished for a crime that I didn't commit. But the more I think about it, the more I'm intrigued. In Northern Australia I'd be doing some good. I will be in a small community in a place called Shady Camp billabong.”

“That sounds nice.” Walter could see that the challenge excited Lara. He was happy for her and so relieved. “They'll be lucky to have you, Lara,” he said, encouragingly. “You'll probably really enjoy experiencing something new, too.”

“But what about you, Dad? I'll be worried about you.”

“I'll be fine,” he tried to sound positive. “I've still got my job, so that occupies a lot of my time. Lord Hornsby is avoiding me, but that suits me. I don't want to see him. I'm looking for another position, but they're scarce at the moment.”

“You love Fitzroy stables, Dad.”

“I do, but I don't want to work for a man who'd have my daughter charged with assaulting him when it isn't true. If not for the horses, I'd have walked out by now.”

Lara frowned. “Oh, Dad, you stay with the horses and forget about Lord Hornsby.”

“Don't worry about me. Just worry about yourself,” Walter insisted.

“Are you sure you'll be fine, Dad? It's always been just the two of us.”

“ I'm going to miss you, dear, but knowing you are free and doing something you love will make me feel a whole lot better.”

Lara could see that he meant it and she understood.

“Two years will soon pass, and we can write to each other,” Walter added.

“You don't write letters, Dad,” Lara smiled wryly.

“I will, for you,” Walter said. “But even if I don't write frequently, I'll enjoy hearing about what it's like in Australia and all about your new school and the pupils.”

“Maybe you could visit.”

“That's a good idea.” Walter didn't actually see it happening, but it was a lovely thought.

“Then it looks like I'm going to Australia,” Lara said, hardly able to believe it was true.

CHAPTER FIVE

May, 1941

“There you are, Lara,” Suzie Wilks said with a tinge of relief as she entered the open cabin door below the main deck. “A couple of your star pupils have been asking for you. I believe they have some questions about the pyramids and Giza, and none of us have a clue.”

Suzie was wearing a gaudy, floral sundress. It was one of only two she owned and certainly not Lara's taste. The rather nauseating colors aside; a concoction of purple, green, and red, it was shapeless and did nothing to flatter her pear-shaped figure.

Lara's dress, on the other hand, perfectly showed off her petite figure. It was peach in color, but unfortunately made of a synthetic fabric, so it clung to her like a raincoat that was wet on the inside. She'd gone from being repulsed by Suzie's dress, to being envious of the cotton disaster. Suzie was also carrying her overly large straw hat that Lara had at first likened to a hideous Mexican sombrero, but she had to grudgingly admit it was perfect protection from the harsh sun when it wasn't windy on deck. Suzie was now using it to fan her flushed face.

Although it was only a little after eight o'clock in the morning, it was already unbearably hot. Lara's fashionable suits and high heels had become a joke aboard ship. She couldn't wait to shop in Australia, but meanwhile she had to suffer, wearing her coolest long-sleeved blouse and skirt day after day. She'd given up wearing nylon stockings, and often went without shoes.

“When you weren't at breakfast some of us were concerned,” Suzie said. “What are you doing down here when it's already more than eighty degrees deck side?”

“I couldn't face breakfast. Ever since we entered the Mediterranean Sea I've felt queasy,” Lara complained while lounging on a bunk in their cramped cabin aboard the
MV
Neptuna
, a mixed cargo vessel with eleven crew and fifty-three passengers, including fifteen children. “Today I feel worse than usual. I guess I'm not used to the heat,” she added. “If Darwin's weather is anything like this, I'm not sure I'm going to cope.”

Suzie was aware that Lara felt uncomfortable in confined spaces, so she knew she must have been feeling terrible if she felt retreating to their cabin was her only option.

“It's a big change from the cold we left in England, but you'll acclimatize.”

“I hope you are right,” Lara said with less conviction.

There were three sets of bunks in the cabin, so Lara was sharing with five other women that included Suzie, a former nurse whose husband had gone out to Australia ahead of her to find work in Perth and establish a home. Fortunately, Lara had a top bunk, near the porthole, which was open, although not a whisper of a breeze was coming in.

Lara had been all right when they were travelling through the North Atlantic, even though they'd had a couple of rough days. She'd stayed on deck through the windiest of days, when everyone else had preferred to be inside. Nearly everyone on board had suffered seasickness. Lara had felt queasy, too, but the cramped confinement of the cabin was too much of a reminder of her cell in prison, so she'd stayed out on deck as much as possible. Fortunately, she'd learnt to tolerate the confines of the cabin when the door was left open and ideally she was the only one inside.

“Well, come up on deck,” Suzie insisted. “It might not be cool, but it's not as stuffy as it is down here. We're just about to stop and refuel at Port Said in Egypt and the crew said that merchants in little boats will surround the ship, hoping to sell us their wares. They will be a distraction and we might pick up something nice.”

“I don't know...” Lara said flatly.

The Australian owned
MV Neptuna
had cast off from Southampton days earlier under the command of Kevin Callahan, an Australian of Irish decent. Lara was homesick, as they all were.

“You are missing your father, aren't you?” Suzie sat down on the bunk facing Lara and looked at her sympathetically. She'd been able to tell from the way that Lara spoke of her father that they were very close and Lara had admitted that they'd never been apart before. Suzie understood their bond was particularly strong because she'd lost her mother as a child.

Lara could only nod. She missed him more with each passing day, if that was possible. She'd told Suzie and the other passengers that she was going to Darwin to teach, but not that she'd had no choice. She was too ashamed to admit that she'd spent time in prison, even if it was for a crime she hadn't committed.

“Sid said he'd go ashore and post some letters for us while the ship refuels.” He was one of the crewmen and quite a character. With a wicked chuckle he claimed to have a girl in every port, something the other crewmen jovially disputed. “You wrote to your father, didn't you? He'll be thrilled to hear from you.”

“Would you give Sid my letter?” Lara asked lethargically. Since the previous day a black cloud had hung over her. If not for the children aboard, whom she'd been unofficially teaching for a couple of hours each morning, she might've been in the real doldrums.

“No, I will not,” Suzie countered. “Enough of this melancholy! It's doing you no good so you must shake it off. I know what I'm talking about, so come on, up you get. We're going up on deck.”

Lara already knew Suzie well enough to believe that she wouldn't take no for answer, so she got up and they went up on deck to find several small boats maneuvering to get close to the ship as it tied up harbor-side. Egyptian vendors were aboard, draped in flowing robes with their heads wrapped up. They were hoisting baskets up to the deck that contained wares they were determined to sell to the passengers. After being told by the crew not to pay a tenth of the asking price, some of the passengers were bartering with them over wooden carvings, leather goods, trinkets, and stuffed animals.

“Don't buy anything stuffed,” Sid warned the excited passengers sternly. “If you do, we will have to throw it overboard.”

“Why?” Suzie asked as she admired a stuffed camel in bright material. One of the young girls, Katie, was excited over a stuffed rag doll, urging her mother to buy it for her.

“They're stuffed with dirty bandages from the hospital,” the crewman told her.

“Ugh!” Suzie cried, throwing the camel back into the basket.

Katie's mother snatched the rag doll from her and threw it down to the boat below, abusing the seller who replied in a verbal tirade in his language.

“Miss Penrose,” said eight-year-old Henry, the second youngest of the children aboard. His sister, Katie, was just six. “You've told us that much about the pyramids. Will we be able to see them from the ship when we go through the Suez?”

As she didn't have textbooks, their unofficial lessons had been more like discussions. Sometimes, to amuse the children and keep them occupied for a couple of hours each day, they'd play games or act out lessons. It was on the second day aboard ship that the passengers found out that Lara was a teacher. By the fourth day of travel, the children were bored and causing problems, so the parents pleaded with Lara to give them some casual lessons. As she was missing her students, she was more than happy to comply. The children ranged in age from six to thirteen, so it was a challenge, but they had fun.

“No, Henry. The nearest pyramids would be at Giza, which is too far away. More than a hundred miles, I'd say.”

“A hundred and twenty-five or thereabouts,” Sid offered after overhearing her words.

“There, you see, Henry. That's too far away,” Lara added.

“But you said they are huge,” Henry said disappointed. “We should be able to see them across the desert.”

“They are huge, Henry, but a hundred and twenty-five miles is a long, long way. You'll see plenty of sand dunes as we pass the Sinai Desert. They should be quite spectacular.”

“Sand dunes are pretty well all you'll see as we go through the Suez,” Sid put in. “And you won't even see them if we have a sand storm.”

The women looked horrified.

Henry looked disappointed.

Henry's mom, Jessica, was looking at a carved wooden pyramid that had come up in a basket from a vendor. “Do you like this, Henry?” she asked her son.

Henry's eyes lit up. “Yes, momma,” he said delighted. “Can I have it?”

Jessica looked at her husband, Ron, who nodded.

Little Katie, who'd really wanted the rag doll her mother threw back to the vendor, looked petulant.

“Would you like a Pharaoh?” Jessica asked her daughter, showing her a six-inch wooden carving, which had been painted in blue and gold. It was quite beautiful.

Katie examined it. “Is it an Egyptian doll?” the little girl asked, and the adults laughed.

The children began chattering about the Pharaoh and the pyramids, and Jessica and Ron watched with pride.

“You are a wonderful teacher, Lara,” Jessica said. “We're so lucky to have you aboard.”

“I'm lucky there are children aboard,” Lara replied. “They've been a great distraction from feeling homesick. Unfortunately, it still gets me sometimes.”

“It's getting to all of us, but that should be expected,” Lorraine Baxter said, patting Lara's shoulder in empathy.

“The school you left in England must've been very sad to see you go,” Jessica said to Lara. “Particularly mid-term.”

Lara felt uncomfortable, but she couldn't admit the truth. “Thank you,” she mumbled. “But there is a severe shortage of teachers in the Northern Territory, so hopefully I'll be able to do some good out there.”

“They'll be so fortunate to have you. Henry was never very interested in schoolwork back home in Dorset, but he never stops talking about the things he's learned from you.”

“Egypt and the pyramids are captivating to young minds and many adults,” Lara said.

“I find the Suez fascinating,” Ron admitted. “It's partly man-made, isn't it? I don't suppose you know who came up with the idea?”

“I know, Daddy,” Henry said, his freckled face split in a broad grin as he looked up at Lara and his parents with obvious pride.

“You do?” Ron was clearly startled.

“Yes, it was Fer-din-and somebody,” he said, struggling to get the name right.

“Ferdinand de Lesseps,” Lara corrected. “The name is a bit of a mouthful for a young boy. He was the French developer of the canal. Do you remember what year the canal was completed, Henry?”

“Yes,” Henry said proudly. “You told us yesterday.”

“1869,” Jackson Riley intervened. He was nine years old and Lara had noticed he was very competitive with Henry.

Henry frowned in annoyance.

“Which seas are connected by the Suez Canal?” Lara asked the boys.

“The Red Sea and the Mediterranean,” Henry said quickly.

“That's right,” Lara said, and Henry beamed, giving Jackson a sideways, smug glance.

“How long is the canal?” Lara asked.

“I know,” Jackson piped up.

“One hundred miles,” Henry jumped in.

“I knew that,” Jackson said crossly. He looked like he wanted to punch Henry.

“How long is the northern access channel, which we will be passing through shortly?” Lara asked quickly to avoid trouble by distracting the boys.

Neither boy remembered.

“It's fourteen miles,” Lara said. “How about the southern access channel?”

“Is it ten miles?” Katie asked shyly.

“Not quite,” Lara said, stroking her blond curls. “Roughly five and a half miles. Who knows how wide the channel is?”

All three children were silent. Lara had told them but it was a difficult number to remember.

“Six hundred and seventy-three feet, give or take an inch,” Lara laughed. “I didn't know that, but Sid told me,” she admitted.

The kids moved away.

“Although the canal is a marvel,” Lara said to Ron and Jessica. “It's important to remember that thousands of laborers died on the project. It's estimated that up to a million and a half laborers from several countries worked on it.”

“It must've been a huge undertaking,” Ron said in awe.

“A bit like the building of the pyramids,” Jessica added.

As the ship gradually moved through the canal in a convoy of several ships, the passengers gazed at the glistening sands of the Sinai Desert. They looked like a giant had used a spoon to swirl them, this way, and that. On both sides of the Suez all they could see was sand, and the same further south, in Sudan. It was like nothing they'd ever seen, a virtual wasteland. They could only wonder how people lived in the desert, especially in the heat, but they did.

At some points along the eleven-hour journey they saw clusters of palm trees or a camel and rider, but overall there was not a lot to see baking under a merciless sun. At the half waypoint, they passed Port Sudan where two ships were unloading goods. They could see caravans of camels waiting at the port. Sid told them that the camels would transport most of the goods coming off the ships. He also said the temperature in July could reach a hundred and thirteen degrees. All of the passengers complaining of the heat were glad they weren't travelling in July.