Tears of the Moon (36 page)

They were protected from the wind and whipping rain. Occasional waves crashed against the hull,
but the boat, driven hard into the sand and mud by its initial impact, stayed in place.

Huddled together, Tyndall wrapped his arms around Olivia. Her thoughts were with her son, praying he was safe and not crazed with fear and worry. Over and over Tyndall kept reassuring her that Minnie would keep Hamish safe.

It was as dark as night, and the noise of the storm so great that Olivia felt the entire world was being broken apart.

Then came a lull, the eye, and they looked at each other.

‘Too risky to make it to town. We have to see it out here,’ said Tyndall.

All too soon, the eye of the cyclone had passed and the terror began all over again. Olivia lost track of time, reduced to an emotional numbness, unable to think or feel, aware only of the warmth and strength of Tyndall’s body. Tyndall was thinking of the little luggers at sea. Few would survive. Thanks to his lassitude, Ahmed, Yoshi and Taki were still ashore and he prayed they were safe. He could only trust and pray that the crew on the
Annabella
would be lucky.

By nightfall the winds gradually eased and then stopped. The sounds of the town picking itself up and awakening from the nightmare began to echo through the devastation. In the darkness, Tyndall and Olivia held hands as they picked their way through rubble and mud to Olivia’s house, oblivious to what was around them. But in her street they became aware of voices calling and the crunch of wood and tin being moved by
residents assessing the damage. The evening sky was still overcast but in the dimness Olivia could see her front fence was gone, the tree in the front garden uprooted and, to her horror, one end of the house had slid from its pole foundations and half the roof was gone. She realised at once which part of the house had caved in.

‘It’s the bedrooms. Oh, dear God, no … ’ she clawed her way into the house, tripping and stumbling, calling, ‘Hamish, Hamish, I’m here … ’

Tyndall scrambled past her, calling for Minnie in the darkened house. He wheeled about and shouted at Olivia to be quiet and listen.

Then they heard it. ‘Mummy … ’ followed by Minnie’s strong voice, ‘In main bedroom.’

As Tyndall and Olivia groped their way into the room now exposed to sky, a light suddenly flared. It flickered from the floor and there, from under the big, solid wood four-poster bed, two faces peeped out, illuminated by the candle in Minnie’s hand. Tyndall took the candle and helped Minnie out while Olivia scooped up Hamish.

‘Big bed no can move. Good place, eh?’ grinned Minnie, then seeing what had crashed into the house in the night she murmured, ‘Cripes, no wonder lotsa noise.’ She reached into her apron pocket and handed another candle and the matches to Tyndall. ‘All I had time to grab.’

Minnie found cake and made a pot of tea and they settled down in the undamaged section of the house to sleep till dawn.

At first light, Tyndall crept outside. He wondered how Minnie’s husband had fared in their small cottage near Kennedy’s Knoll.

The impact of the cyclone, even though the town missed the full force of it, was shocking. He headed straight for the bay and saw that a dozen luggers making for Roebuck Bay had reached Entrance Point before being wrecked on the rocks or driven into the tangle of mangroves.

The waters of the bay were stained with flood-waters and along the coastline for miles was a hightide mark of flotsam. A jumble of sea rubbish, broken mangroves, wrecked dinghies and shattered boats were tangled with stores and dead birds. Seamen’s personal effects and bodies of men were thrown together in a litter of wreckage and death.

Tales of heroism, survival and tragedy would later emerge: the elderly white captain supported in the sea by his Malay crew until they were luckily swept into shore; shipwrecked men who had the clothes whipped from their bodies and suffered near blindness and excruciating pain as their naked bodies were sandblasted by the wind-driven sand; a shell opener decapitated by a flying sheet of iron; and so many other lives lost by drowning.

As Tyndall trudged through the town it looked as if a small war had been fought in the streets. Shanty houses had been torn apart and blown miles into the pindan, foundations remaining as the only evidence of their previous existence. Some commercial buildings in town were flattened and most were damaged. Sheba Lane took a battering but while many lost their roofs
and rickety balconies, most of the buildings stayed upright, somehow clinging together for support.

At the Aboriginal camps, there was little to salvage but all had survived by sheltering in thick scrub between the inland sand dunes. Seeing Tyndall, Alf appeared holding the hand of Minnie’s daughter, Mollie. Tyndall passed on the news his missus was all right.

‘Tell ‘er not to come home for a bit. I’m still pickin’ up ’er stuff outta trees,’ he said with a shrug.

Finally Tyndall had to face the inevitable and he turned along the seafront to the offices of Star of the Sea. The building was partially damaged, but intact. Ahmed was asleep on the office floor, his head resting on a rolled-up sail.

Tyndall woke him and together they set out to assess the situation at the foreshore camp. The shed was a total write-off, but it wouldn’t take much to rebuild the simple unlined corrugated iron shed and upstairs crew room. The
Bulan
was aground well above the high-water mark but the hull was sound.

‘Going to take a lot of bullocks to drag her back to the water,’ observed Tyndall. ‘Reckon that and repairs to the rigging will take a couple of weeks at least.’

They rowed out to the
Conrad
, one of the few vessels to stay securely anchored during the big blow. She sat low in the water, the main hold flooded. ‘A pump job and some rigging. Got off lightly there, Ahmed.’

‘Good name, Captain. Lucky ship,’ commented Ahmed with a smile.

‘You may be right, Ahmed. A lucky ship.’ Then
they rowed over to the
Shamrock
. She had dragged her anchors and was heeling over slightly, sitting on the bottom at half tide, but the two men were soon able to haul it out into deeper water and reposition the anchors. There was stormwater in all compartments, but little damage.

‘Another lucky ship, Ahmed. The luck of the Irish is powerful too,’ he grinned, aware of just how much import his friend put on superstition.

In all, thirty luggers were lost at sea but the
Annabella
limped back to Broome under a juryrig, having lost both masts.

Evans was praised for his skill though he modestly claimed a lot of it was luck. ‘As the divers say, when your day is come, you go.’

Weeks were lost while repairs were made and gradually the remnants of the fleet headed out to sea. Yoshi took the
Conrad
and once the masts and pump were replaced, Evans took the
Annabella
back to sea. Only the
Bulan
wasn’t ready. Tyndall said he’d bring the
Shamrock
out to supply them and pick up shell in a couple of weeks.

Tyndall had said little to anyone about Niah and Maya, but now he broached the subject with Olivia and confessed he longed to know what had happened to them.

They sat in the shadowy twilight of Olivia’s verandah and she reached over and took his hand, hearing the tremor in his voice and realising the depth of his feelings.

‘Maybe we should spread the word a bit more,’ she suggested. ‘Can’t the police or the blacktrackers help?’

Tyndall shrugged. ‘I’ve already mentioned it on the quiet to my mate the sergeant. Out of their territory. Lumped as “blackfella business”.’

Later Olivia decided to talk with Minnie.

‘Captain Tyndall is still upset over Niah and Maya. How would you go about trying to find out where they are?’

‘Why? If Niah ready come back, she come back. But I can send word again. Wally find out.’

‘Wally? Who’s Wally? What do you mean
again?
’ Olivia demanded. As she studied Minnie’s set and closed face, Olivia began to feel cold shivers run through her. Minnie, jolly, honest, open Minnie was holding something back.

‘Wally one of the mob. Same as me. Sorta cousin.’

‘What does he know about Niah?’

When Minnie didn’t answer straight away, Olivia was insistent. ‘Minnie, you must tell me. It’s important. If you know anything about Niah and Maya, you must tell me.’

‘Niah take Maya find her Dreaming, learn ‘bout her family. Them be all right.’

‘Minnie! You
know
where they are, why they went?’

‘Me and Alf are townies now. Don’t keep in touch regular with my people. I dunno what happen. Niah unhappy. She ask me what t’do. I tell her take Maya find her people. Niah belong same people. We all same people. Same family. Wally take ’em. Mebbe if Wally come back he know sumthin.’

The jerky answers pieced the story together for Olivia, who was still somewhat shocked by this revelation. ‘Please Minnie. We must find out. It’s not fair on Captain Tyndall. He loves little Maya, she’s his daughter. And I suppose in his way, he loves Niah too.’

Minnie gave her a shrewd look. ‘I see what I can find out.’

Olivia was about to leave when she turned back to Minnie. ‘What do you mean, you all the same people. Who are you talking about?’

Minnie lifted a hand in a vague gesture. ‘My people belong same country you make friends when you come on beach ‘n’ have your first baby. Wally belong same people. He live in town some time. Some time go bush.’

Olivia stared at Minnie. ‘You mean the women I first met down the coast from Cossack are
your
people?’

‘Yeah. But I got taken by police ‘n’ sent to a mission school.’ She gave a defiant lift to her head. ‘Learn white ways, work for white people. I marry Alf, he mix-up blood too. But I find my people again. We got different lives now. Keep in with ‘em, they always family.’

‘I don’t know what to say. Who knows this?’

‘Ahmed know. He fetch me when Niah baby come ‘cause he know we same people. He know my people help you. They watch out for us.’

Olivia sat down, trying to absorb this avalanche of important information and wondering if she would ever understand the Aboriginal way of thinking, their different attitude to life, different values.

Eventually she said slowly, ‘Minnie, could you send some sort of message via Wally, when he turns up again, to please find out where Niah and Maya are. If they are all right and when or if they are coming back? Do you think he can find out?’

‘Mebbe. We try. Don’ worry, mem.’

Olivia decided not to say anything to Tyndall until they had some answers.

It took two weeks. By whatever method messages were relayed over the vast distance of the bush, the story filtered back of Niah being kidnapped by Gunther and possibly killed. Looking distressed, Minnie relayed the news to Olivia.

‘But what of Maya? Where is she, she’s so young, what’s happened to her?’ Olivia dreaded having to pass on this news to Tyndall.

‘Oh, Maya safe. She with her family, all the aunties and uncles look after her. She learn their ways, wait see if her mummy come back.’

Olivia was frustrated and angry. ‘What if Niah doesn’t come back, and it seems unlikely. Maya should be here, with her father.’

‘Maya with her people,’ said Minnie stubbornly.

‘Do you know where she is?’

Minnie shook her head. ‘They on walkabout. Come back some time. Better Maya stay with her people. Tyndall no can look after little girl proper. No can teach her business.’

‘But she could have the advantages of going to a school here, learning our ways too. She is half white, Minnie.’

Minnie shrugged. ‘Maya come back to Broome one day.’

Olivia saw it was pointless arguing with Minnie. She knew what Tyndall would say, that if Maya stayed away, she’d forget this life and her father.

Tyndall said little after Olivia quietly told him the details in his office. She noticed Maya’s toy lugger was back on his desk. He stood and looked out over Streeter’s Jetty and the activity of rebuilding and repairing the cyclone damage. She had expected him to rant and rave and lose his temper. His silent pain was actually harder to bear. ‘Leave me be please, Olivia. And thank you … for finding out what … happened.’

They didn’t speak of the matter again. He didn’t appear for their sundowners for a couple of nights and she suspected he was comforting himself with a bottle of whisky. When he did turn up, it was all business.