Tears of the Moon (66 page)

‘What will happen to Ahmed?’ asked Toby. ‘Where’s his home?’

‘With me,’ said Tyndall. ‘He can move into the back of the house.’

Fearing an invasion, the Government purchased all the luggers, those deemed unseaworthy were destroyed. The aerodrome had been upgraded and was already a refuelling station for the RAAF and planes on the run to the Dutch East Indies.

By the end of February 1942, Broome was a shell of its former self.

When the Mettas announced they were leaving Broome for Perth, Olivia’s heart sank. Toby put on a brave face, his stout frame quivering with emotion as he embraced Olivia. Mabel seemed less composed, indeed as Olivia hugged her dear Ceylonese friend she felt that Mabel had shrunk. She seemed lost in her sombre maroon sari, and her long hair coiled at the nape of her neck was streaked with grey, but her smile was as dazzling as ever.

‘Don’t leave it too long before you join us,’ begged Mabel. ‘Get John out of here. You must.’

Several state ships already had left with families on
board, and this would be the last. A few people were leaving by aircraft.

‘It’s not first class travel, we’re jammed in and it’s so hot, but we’ll have to make the best of it,’ sighed Mabel.

A lot of the men stayed behind, knowing they might be needed in Broome and it was heart-breaking to Olivia to see them waving farewell to their wives and children. As the ship pulled away, Olivia burst into tears against Tyndall’s chest. ‘I have this feeling I’m never going to see them again.’

‘Nonsense. You can go back to Perth any time. You still have a house there remember. Just say the word.’

‘I will not leave you, or Broome.’

‘Then dry your tears. You’ve made up your mind, my darling.’

The streets of Broome were silent, buildings deserted, Sheba Lane abandoned. And as evacuation ships headed out to sea, the men left behind got royally drunk in the pubs.

With the Japanese push through the Philippines and the Dutch East Indies, Broome suddenly became the transit centre for refugee families. Allied servicemen, and civilians and their families, American service personnel from the Philippines and desperate Dutch families from the Indies, were evacuated to Australia through Broome, mainly by air.

The Institute Hall was turned into a medical and care centre and Olivia worked tirelessly helping the refugee families. There were few women in the
town, a nurse, the lady at the telephone exchange and several of the Sisters at the St John of God Convent. The hotels were full and the remaining families threw open their homes to cope with the thousands coming through.

Tyndall also poured his efforts into helping out at the harbour where there was little provision for the flying boats. The spring tides stranded many of the flying boats a mile from shore. It was a long walk through the mud to the jetty and then to the shore and many of the older people and mothers with children chose to stay on board the flying boats despite the cramped conditions. Ahmed worked beside Tyndall helping to put down moorings for the flying boats and running a stripped down lugger as a fuel barge.

‘The aerodrome is badly cut up. Those Flying Fortresses and the Liberators are so big, they have to make repairs after every landing,’ said Tyndall.

‘All the Malay and Koepanger boys out there fixin’ it up,’ said Ahmed. ‘They dig up gravel. Hard work for them livin’ out at the ’drome.’

‘Those pilots must be exhausted, refuelling and straight back for another load. I heard there were over fifty planes out there today. Those poor people. It sounds awful up in the East,’ said Olivia. ‘They’re shuttling them out just ahead of the Japanese.’

That evening Tyndall called Olivia to come out on the verandah. But instead of the tranquil sunset view they generally enjoyed, the bay was full of activity. As they watched, two Dutch Navy Dornier flying boats
skimmed in and landed, skidding across the water like great silver sea birds.

After their supper Tyndall and Olivia returned to the verandah. The wet was almost over, a soft fuzz ringed the moon. The calm waters were dotted with Qantas Catalinas and Short Sunderland flying boats. ‘They look like great big birds bobbing out there in the bay,’ said Olivia. ‘It looks so peaceful.’

‘For the moment. There’s still a lot of activity down there. They have to get out on the tides. Makes it tricky.’

‘What’s going to happen to us, John?’ whispered Olivia.

‘Who knows? All we can do is our best, as we’ve always done. Do you want to leave? Maybe you should. Maybe we both should.’

‘Do you want to go?’

‘No. A captain doesn’t leave his ship. Don’t worry, my precious.’ He kissed the top of her head.

‘I’m with you, Captain.’ Olivia felt comforted as Tyndall put an arm around her.

Two days later in the afternoon as the lighter
Nicol Bay,
carrying drums of aviation fuel, ploughed across the bay to one of the three flying boats, Tyndall and Ahmed paused while working near the jetty and looked up. A distant buzz high above them materialised into a small aircraft turning in a lazy arc and circling several times before heading north-west.

Tyndall hurried along to an engineer working nearby who was also gazing skywards. ‘What do you make of that?’ asked Tyndall.

‘Jap reconnaissance plane, I reckon.’

‘I don’t like it. The brass think we’re out of flying range for the Japanese, but at the rate they’re moving their bases this way, I don’t think we are.’

‘Good thing only a couple of planes in.’

‘There’ll be more tonight. They’re damned sitting ducks,’ said Tyndall ominously.

‘See, I knew there’d be more arrivals,’ declared Tyndall the next morning as he stood on his front verandah with a mug of tea. ‘There’s sixteen aircraft out there.’

‘They’re all Dutch by the look of it,’ said Olivia, joining him.

‘I’d better get down there and help with the refuelling, they should get them out as soon as the tide is right.’ He kissed Olivia and handed her his empty mug. ‘See you later on, my darling.’

While the aircraft were being refuelled, some of the air crews were celebrating the success of the last refugee run down in the bar of the Conti. Most of the Dutch women and children were waiting in the flying boats. At the aerodrome the first of the half dozen aircraft was preparing to leave. A Liberator had arrived at dawn from Jogjakarta with wounded men and was given first priority out.

On the spur of the moment, Olivia had decided to go down to the wharf to watch the aircraft take off. She joined the small crowd of remaining locals and a group of evacuated women and children waiting for a launch to take them to their flying boat.

The crews in the Conti looked at their watches and tipped back the last of their drinks. It was a bright clear morning approaching 9.30 a.m.

From the north came the drone of aircraft which no one took any notice of until, seconds later, from Cable Beach came nine silver specks swooping low and fast over Roebuck Bay.

Olivia glanced up, then screamed at the sight of the deadly little Zeros with the brilliant red circle of the rising sun on their fuselage. She watched in horror as the planes struck with surprise and accuracy.

At the sound of machine gun fire, men raced from the Continental and watched helplessly as one after another of the flying boats was hit and burst into flames.

Olivia’s first instinct was to dive flat on the wharf, putting her hands over her ears trying to block out the screams of the women and children in the sinking and burning aircraft.

The Zeros turned for another attacking run and their tracer bullets ripped through other boats and planes that had survived the first onslaught.

Suddenly, everyone sprang into action as clouds of black smoke rolled around the brilliant waters of the bay.

‘John!’ screamed Olivia, starting to run down the long wharf to find him and Ahmed.

The captain of the refuelling lighter cast off and the crew frantically began picking up burned survivors. Some women and children not trapped in the belly of the aircraft were in the water. Few could
swim and through the noise and gunfire came a scream, ‘Sharks!’

Other small craft were pushing out into the burning sea, heedless of danger, looking for survivors. All the flying boats sank within minutes.

Tyndall and Ahmed had grabbed a dinghy pulled up on the shore and pushed out into the pall of smoke and fumes. Ahmed rowed with all his strength as Tyndall shouted instructions. They dragged two women and a young girl into the dinghy. Then another woman was dragged over the side, coughing and still clinging onto her drowned baby. A badly injured man was next.

‘There’s a head to starboard, Ahmed.’

‘No can take more, tuan. We sink. We come back.’

Willing hands helped pull survivors from the boat and Ahmed and Tyndall turned back into the nightmare on the bay.

Despairingly they heard the Zeros turning for another attack. They only attacked the aircraft, ignoring the rescuers, the spectators on the wharf and the town. But tracer bullets were slicing in every direction. Ahmed pulled as hard as he could at the oars. He caught Tyndall’s eye and Tyndall gave him a swift smile of encouragement.

‘Want me to take over, Ahmed?’

Ahmed shook his head and returned the smile, then suddenly he slumped forward with a cry.

‘My god, Ahmed, You’re hit!’ Tyndall reached for him, seeing the blood already seeping across his white shirt. He lay him down and took over the oars, turning for shore, stroking as powerfully as he
could. He kept his eyes on Ahmed’s face, willing his loyal companion not to die. ‘Hang on, old friend, we’re getting there. It’s not going to bloody well end like this. It can’t.’

An oar struck the muddy bottom and Tyndall leaped over the side and reached for Ahmed.

Olivia was frantically running along the shore trying to see into the fumes and pall of smoke that blurred the sun. The noise of the gunfire, cracking and burning, the shouts and screams, had seared into her soul. ‘John … Ahmed … ’ she cried. It seemed an eternity had passed since she was standing in the sun on the wharf but it had been less than fifteen minutes.

Then, miraculously, like some apparition, through the drifting smoke she saw the tall figure of her beloved Tyndall wading from the bay, with Ahmed in his arms.

A pain stabbed at Olivia. ‘Oh, Ahmed … ’ In the next second her world spun and in slow motion she saw Tyndall’s head jerk upwards, his knees bend, and he sank down into the mud. His body made one effort to rise, to lift Ahmed, but then he pitched forward and both of them lay in the mud at the water’s edge.

By the time she got to them, they were both dead.

Olivia sat in the mud, Tyndall’s head on her lap, stroking his hair with one hand, her other hand resting on Ahmed’s shoulder, oblivious to the chaos about her.

The Zeros swooped from the bay to the aerodrome and destroyed what planes remained on the ground.
The opposing force from the Volunteer Defence Corps fired their .303 rifles in anger and frustration but were no match for the Zeros which now jettisoned their long-range fuel tanks. But a Dutch submachine gunner who had been repairing his gun at the aerodrome workshop emptied his ammunition at the departing Japanese and scored a hit.

Glancing over his shoulder, the Japanese pilot saw the disabled Zero spin out of control and reflected that one loss was a small price to pay for the honour they had done the Emperor.

Their mission accomplished, the Zeros turned and set a course for Timor and their base at the town of Koepang, where divers had been recruited for the Broome pearling industry since the late 1800s.

But Takeo Yoshikuri was uncharacteristically slow in joining the formation. Instead he took a long curving sweep over Broome and looked with intense curiosity at the rather shabby and sprawling little town. He had heard so much about it but couldn’t see anything that helped him understand the attraction it still had for his father, who had worked there for so much of his life as a diver.

As he adjusted the throttle to catch up with his colleagues he remembered a photograph his father had on display all the time at home. It was a photograph of him as a young man in his diving suit on the deck of a lugger and beside him was the tall, smiling Australian captain. What was his name? Father was always talking about him. Suddenly it came to him. Ah yes, Captain Tyndall. And as he took
his position in the formation, Takeo wondered what Captain Tyndall was doing on this day.

Broome 1995

In the reading room of the Broome Historical Society, Lily came to the last entry in Olivia’s diary.

June 24, 1953

It is now a week since Georgiana and Lily flew back to Sydney and I am missing them so much. Their visit was as bright as Broome sunlight in the dry season. Georgie is as flighty as ever, gushing with enthusiasm for everything and full of schemes and plans now she has settled there from America after the divorce. Lily is a beautiful child and has quite a serious streak and an intelligence that I think will take her far. She reminds me so much of Hamish. We had some lovely moments together, particularly in the garden. When I was with her, I felt so much younger and found an energy that I didn’t know I could still muster. Now all that energy has gone again and I’m left with only the memories …