Gibber’s Creek Gazette, 1 August 1942
New Speed Limit
A speed limit of twenty miles an hour has been set by order of the premier during all blackouts and brownouts. It will apply between sunset and sunrise. In addition, at all times and places headlights must be effectively screened.
According to Councillor Bullant: ‘Council-appointed officers will be ensuring that all motorists keep to the advised speed limit at all times.’
Councillor Ellis commented: ‘If the premier thinks he can drive at more than twenty miles an hour on some of the roads around here, I’d like to see him try.’
PULAU AYU PRISON CAMP, 1 AUGUST 1942
NANCY
The cramps hit her at dawn, so bad she doubled up in pain. She glanced over at the next bed. Moira had vanished, presumably to the latrine, leaving Gavin sleeping on the narrow bed, arms sprawled.
She hobbled out to the latrine. Moira was crouched on the plank above the trench. Mrs Hughendorn trudged quickly behind her, and then Nurse Rogers. The four of them crouched, like chooks perched in the henhouse, trying to ignore each other’s sounds.
‘Dysentery,’ said Nurse Rogers at last, as they staggered weak and dizzy back towards their huts. ‘Gavin … is he all right?’
‘I think so.’ Moira’s face looked even paler.
‘He was still asleep when I left,’ said Nancy.
‘Thank goodness. It’s not the food then.’ Gavin only drank the thin stews they boiled morning and evening. ‘Must be the well water. Better boil it …’ Another spasm hit her. Nurse Rogers ran for the latrine again.
It passed. Days of agony every time she swallowed, trying to keep the boiled water down. Somehow one of them managed to boil enough for the next day for the others, make a soup of whatever food they were given. Gavin ate it eagerly; Moira was no longer able to give him any nourishment at all. Her body had grown skeletal, her eyes like dark-rimmed moons.
‘Drink,’ urged Nurse Rogers, and they did, in sips, as small as possible, for any larger swallow brought the spasms on.
Nancy recovered first. Because I’m younger, she thought. Or because my body got used to bad water on the way to Charters Towers? After a week, she was the one to light the fire, to boil the water, to feed Gavin, to watch him crawl about in the dirt, his hands and knees becoming crusty, for she did not have the strength yet to wash him as well as do the other chores.
‘At least,’ said Nurse Rogers, taking her ration of water mixed with a little rice gruel, ‘the officers won’t want us to entertain them now. Not and risk catching something from us.’
Nancy nodded. Nor, she thought, could any man want their company now. Even the floor scrubbing had been stopped, for fear the women might infect their guards. Nancy looked at the others: thin to hardness, eyes well sunk into black shadows, hair filthy, smelling of the latrine. Even Gavin was thin now. Vegetables alone were not enough for a growing child, and she hadn’t had the strength to catch ‘island rabbit’, or to ask again if she could go out and pick hibiscus flowers.
At home Mum would make sure he drank a glass of milk with every meal. He’d be eating meat and vegetables, chopped fine, stewed apple, grated pears, mashed banana …
She looked at him, slouched in the dirt as if too tired to crawl. ‘Nanna?’ he said. He lifted his arms to her.
‘Nancy,’ she said softly as she picked him up.
‘Nanna,’ he agreed. He burrowed into her like a baby wombat seeking its pouch.
She took him into their hut, put him next to Moira. Her sister-in-law rolled over, still half asleep, and wrapped him in her arms.
For a moment Nancy stared at them. She stepped wearily to the ‘dressing table’ — a block of wood where Mrs Harris had put her brush and comb for them to share. Mrs Harris was asleep too, the skin of her face drooping like sheets of paper, her breathing harsh.
Nancy brushed her hair, stripped off a shred of bamboo to tie it back as smartly as she could, and changed her dress for her one clean one, already fraying at the edges.
That was as respectable as she could make herself, she decided. She walked, telling herself that her trembling was from illness, not fear. She knocked at the door of the officers’ club.
The youngest of the officers opened it. He stared at her as she bowed, as low as she could, then shouted down the corridor.
She rose from the bow. She stood there, waiting. The same men who had been there the night of Mrs Mainwaring’s death sat in what had been Mrs Hughendorn senior’s armchairs. The commandant sat there too, a glass of what looked like tea in his hand. He neither looked at nor acknowledged her.
‘What do you want?’ It was the translator.
‘The little boy needs food,’ she said. ‘We are all sick. We need medicine.’
‘Japanese soldiers have been generous to give you food. No medicine.’
‘We can pay for the medicine! Please!’ She was sure Mrs Hughendorn would agree; she was as sick as any of them.
The translator looked back. The commandant gave an imperceptible nod. ‘If you give me the money, I will see if I can buy medicine.’
‘Thank you.’ She bowed deeply again. She hoped this man would not take half the money for himself. ‘Please, may we have more food for the little boy?’
‘If you can pay for medicine, you can pay for food.’
‘But … but Japan is defeating the British Empire. We will be here many years. Won’t we?’
The translator gave no answer.
‘We cannot buy food for that long. Please, food for one small boy. And some seeds? So we can begin to grow our own?’
‘You have food —’ began the translator.
The commandant said something to the translator, not to her.
The translator looked startled. He turned to Nancy again. ‘There will be food for the boy. No seeds. Gardens need tools.’
‘Proper food?’
‘Do not question Japanese officers.’
A guard approached, with his bamboo rod at the ready. She bowed again hastily. ‘Thank you. Arigato. I thank the honour of Japanese officers, to help one small boy.’
‘Go,’ said the translator. Nancy went.
The translator was with the guard when he delivered the sago the next morning: two coconut shells full, for the eleven of them. The guard also gave her a hand of bananas, a dozen of them, not much longer than her finger.
She gazed at them, hunger growling like a dog smelling roast lamb. It was the first fruit she had seen since they had been interned.
‘For the boy,’ said the translator, as if he suspected she might eat them herself.
‘Nanna?’ Gavin crawled from the hut towards her. I really must wash him today, she thought. And catch rats early tomorrow.
‘Come here, darling.’ She lifted him onto her knee. Even that was an effort. He clung there, waiting for the sago to cook.
She shook her head. ‘Look what Auntie Nancy has for you. Bananas.’
He opened his mouth, a small starved bird, as she fed him tiny chunks.