The ferry was minimally lit, as all vessels necessarily were now, and Michael pulled his jacket close, staring at the black and silver water.
She hadn’t turned up. Again. He supposed he should have been relieved but, despite every piece of common sense telling him it was for the best, it had cut like a blade into his chest when the other girls had arrived without her. It made him feel desperate, as though he should just rush to her somehow, find her wherever she was and kiss all the terrible aching away. Give in to that forbidden affair and take whatever was left. But that kind of illicit love would never be enough for either of them and he wasn’t sure he could bear the thought that she felt another man’s touch.
Manly had been cold today and barbed wire now lined the beach; vicious and stark, an abomination on the beauty of the place. All day the others had chatted and laughed, trying to forget about the war, and all day he’d fought memories, trying to forget about her. He was imprisoned by those images, as if someone had wrapped the barbed wire around his mind too, and nothing else could get in or out. Michael had battled against visions of the last time he’d been there, staring at the fortifications as if they had been placed just to remind him that Junie was now off limits.
Everything about Manly had added to the desolation he felt: the seagulls, the Steyne Hotel, the sound of the ocean. They all sent the same message in stark refrain: She’d known that summer’s day. She’d known she wouldn’t marry him, that it was all they would have. And she hadn’t said anything, except that she loved him. Without that memory, without those wretched words spoken from deep in her heart as he lay against her breast, perhaps he could accept losing her. But because of them he was as empty as the beach had been on this lonely, autumn day.
Cliffy and Jake were murmuring nearby and the breeze sent the occasional waft of tobacco his way. Michael took out his pouch, intending to have one himself as they rounded Bradley’s Head, when he was surprised by the sight of searchlights. He looked back at the USS Chicago. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary there. Then he noticed the lights were focused on the approaching boom gate that marked where the nets lay beneath.
‘Never seen that before,’ said Jake, coming to stand next to him with Cliffy. They were all aware that an enemy plane had been spotted over the harbour the night before.
‘Maybe they’re just a bit nervous,’ Cliffy said.
The ferry from Circular Quay moved through, then it was their turn and they scanned the waters closely. Suddenly Jake nudged them.
‘Look!’
‘What?’ said Cliffy.
‘I thought I saw a periscope.’
‘Where?’ Michael asked, craning to see.
‘Just there.’
They all stared into the swirling black ink behind the boat.
‘Are you certain?’ Michael asked.
‘Not completely. But it bloody looked like it.’
‘Maybe you should tell the captain.’
‘Do you reckon?’ Jake asked.
None of them were sure so he decided not to, but they continued to watch in nervous silence.
Michael’s heart was thumping hard in his chest and he silently urged the ferry to get to the quay faster. The dark waters looked ominous now with the idea of an enemy submarine lurking beneath them, armed to kill. His imagination raced. Was this it? Would planes arrive now? Would the invasion of Sydney be tonight? He stared across at Mosman, praying for Junie. God keep her safe. Just give me that much. Then his thoughts went to his family over at Hurstville and he wished he could get word to them to get in that damn bomb shelter his father had insisted they build. Filled with redbacks and water no doubt, but at least it would protect them if this really was a raid.
Hurry man, hurry, he mentally implored the captain as the ferry continued its slow progress, stopping repeatedly, searchlights sweeping across them. Michael would have worried they were a sitting duck if he didn’t figure they were likely to be low on the priority list for the Japanese.
The ferry finally arrived with a dull clunk and they jumped off, walking swiftly away from the wharf.
‘What should we do?’ Cliffy asked Michael.
‘I don’t know.’
‘You’re the bloody officer!’ Jake reminded him.
‘Right,’ Michael said, gathering his wits. ‘How sure are you really?’
Jake rubbed his face. ‘I’m pretty sure –’
He was cut off by the sound of explosions.
The noise seemed to be coming from Rose Bay and lights flashed in that section of the harbour. Then the enormous bridge was illuminated in an eerie orange light and Michael felt a rush of protectiveness for his country consume him.
‘Come on!’ he yelled, running towards the Botanic Gardens.
‘What are you doing?’ Cliffy shouted behind him.
‘Looking for a gun!’ he said. They all ran then, searching for defensive posts, but then the explosions stopped and they stood on the street, confused, as the air raid sirens began to wail. Searchlights now scanned the sky and people were running in every direction.
They were lost in the chaos, not sure which way to go until they saw a group of soldiers pass with two machine guns on the back of a truck. Michael gave the signal to follow them and, as they rounded the corner, the harbour came into full view. For the first time in history it was alive with war. Gunfire pounded from all sides as the lights criss-crossed the water, momentarily blinding them, and it was frightening and deafening in equal parts.
‘Come on!’ Michael yelled.
They reached the truck at a sprint and helped the men haul sandbags around the guns and set up ammo. Cliffy took the honours on one – he was getting to be an expert at handling a machine gun – and the other soldiers didn’t argue as they watched him in action. No-one knew exactly what they were shooting at but if Pearl Harbor was anything to go by, they couldn’t pour enough firepower into the water where the searchlights landed.
It seemed to last forever, like an endless, terrible cracker night, then an almighty explosion took out one of the converted ferries as it sat near Garden Island. Michael watched in horror as sure death hit the air, knowing the men within had almost certainly been killed. Great flames leapt into the sky and Michael closed his eyes against the image, but it remained, burning against the grey inside his lids.
The fireworks continued into the night until the battle finally petered out and someone turned the sirens back on to tell the city it was over for now.
Then Michael, Jake and Cliffy walked slowly back to the quay, shaken by their first experience of real combat and solemn in the knowledge that the battles were no longer in someone else’s backyard.
They weren’t playing war games any more.
They would wake in the morning to discover three subs had entered the harbour that night, one tight on the heels of a Manly ferry, and that twenty-one men had died in their beds near Garden Island, aboard the HMAS Kuttabul.
Over the next few weeks, Sydney would be shelled again, as would Newcastle, and by July, sixty-two crewmen would be dead and seven ships destroyed off the New South Wales coast at the hands of the Japanese.
With the coming of the cold winds the great lady mourned, restless now as the weaponry of May littered her harbour depths. The dark war had visited her gentle parlour and she carried the lives of the dead with her now, forever the mark of their watery grave.
But her people worshipped her still. They mourned with her and looked to her for comfort as she continued to guard their home, crowned by the great bridge like a queen.
And, as winter arrived to add chill to the wind and the rain, they prepared for battle along with their allies, gathering their collective armies to leave her safe waters. To fight for their freedom in the jungles to the north and again on her wide blue skirts.
This time they sent their own boats armed with black dots towards Hawaii, to a place known as Midway, to meet the enemy in swarms and surprise them with new forms of attack and defence. Developments that could turn the fate of the war.
Weapons of intelligence.