Gibber’s Creek Gazette, 15 January 1945
According to a government spokesman, one thousand five hundred Australian war brides have already set sail for America and their new families, while another ten thousand war brides wait for passage to be reunited with their American husbands. Every transport ship provides berths for a handful of lucky brides.
Wife of the Prime Minister, Mrs Elsie Curtin, yesterday told a press conference she was worried that some of these young brides had very little idea about the life each would be making. Many expected to live in New York City or Hollywood or places they had seen in the movies, but instead most are destined for the ‘… backblocks. If they are city girls,’ she commented, ‘they will have a rude awakening.’
It is evident that many of these marriages were hasty and even ill-considered, with young women sympathetic to the young men so soon to face the Japanese and help our country. But second thoughts are too late once you are married. It is believed that a new bill will soon be presented to the Australian parliament to allow war brides to divorce under Australian law, so that they need not go to America to dissolve a union that was too rash.
But for Gibber’s Creek’s only war bride, Dahlia Polanski (née Bullant), life in America is ‘grand’. In a letter to her parents last month, Dahlia says, ‘… there is a wireless in every house in the street and a new movie at the pictures every week. They have this wonderful store called the Piggly Wiggly, where you can buy ice cream and stockings and all the bacon you want. Last night we went out after dinner and had an ice-cream sundae with hot fudge sauce. I had two!’
PULAU AYU PRISON CAMP, 15 JANUARY 1945
NANCY
‘Nanna! Tell me story! A Ben and Nancy one.’
Nancy settled Gavin on her lap as she sat on her bunk. Outside, the wind muttered and tore at the roof. The bed was damp. She was damp. But at least it was warm damp, not cold. A small pile of smouldering coconut shells warded off the mosquitoes, a gift from Mr Shigura.
‘Once upon a time there was a bunyip! A big hairy bunyip that lived in the waterhole at the place called Overflow. It used to call every night, when the moon shone, “Ooooerrrrrrrrrrr”.’
Gavin giggled.
‘“Never swim in the waterhole by the big rock,” Gran told Ben and Nancy. “The bunyip who lives under the waterlilies there will drag you down.”’
‘What is a waterhole?’
She stared at him, this child who couldn’t remember a world beyond the hard-packed rectangle of dirt and huts. ‘It’s like a bucket of water, but big … bigger than the whole camp!
‘One day Ben had an idea. He said, “Let’s make the bunyip happy. Then we can catch fish in the waterhole.”’
‘How do you catch fish?’
‘I’ll show you one day.’
‘Tomorrow?’
‘Maybe not tomorrow. Ben decided that they should give the bunyip everything they liked best. They brought a teddy bear … That’s a soft thing you cuddle,’ she added, forestalling the next question. ‘They brought food too.’
‘Cassava and nanas?’
‘No cassava and no bananas. They didn’t have any bananas then.’
‘Coconuts?’
‘No coconuts.’
‘What did they eat then?’ asked the boy who had eaten cassava and bananas for as long as he could remember.
‘A big plate of mutton and pickle sandwiches. Half a watermelon. Buttered scones and pikelets with jam, and lettuce with salad cream and pickled beetroot. They’re good things to eat.’
‘Really?’ Gavin was not convinced.
‘Really. One day you’ll eat them too. Ben said the bunyip wouldn’t like pickled beetroot, because Ben hated it, but Nancy said she loved pickled beetroot, so they left it in. And they had apple pie and cold roast chicken with lemon stuffing and roast potato and roast pumpkin …’ She realised that Nurse Rogers had stopped to listen, and Moira too, gazing at her, their minds far away, in the world where there was so much food you could give away a picnic to a bunyip.
‘I think the bunyip would like cassava and nanas best,’ said Gavin. ‘But not dried fish.’
‘Dried fish is good for you. Ben and Nancy put out all the food by the waterhole. And the next morning what do you think they found?’
‘The bunyip didn’t like it.’
She grinned. He grinned back, so like Ben she nearly cried. How could a smile be Ben’s, and hers and Gran’s, but all his own too? Did all three-year-olds talk as well as Gavin did? Was he brilliant? Well, of course he was brilliant, but perhaps it was the company of so many doting aunties too: he spoke like a child who’d never played with another his own age.
‘The bunyip loved it! All the food was gone.’ Eaten by a wild pig or possums, most likely, she thought. ‘And Ben said, “Hooray! Let’s fish in the bunyip pool.” So they threw in the fishing lines.’
‘Didn’t they want the fishing lines any more?’
‘No, they held onto one end and a great big fish grabbed the hook at the other. And Ben pulled it up and took it home and they all had roast fish for dinner.’
‘I’d rather have nanas,’ said Gavin decidedly.
Nancy laughed. ‘Ben’s family wouldn’t. They said he was the best fisherman in the world. And do you know who Ben is now?’
‘My daddy!’ yelled Gavin, bouncing on his grubby knees.
‘That’s right. And one day we are all going to Overflow. Me and you and Mummy and Daddy.’
‘And Auntie Rogers and Mrs Hughendorn and —’
‘Everyone who wants to come.’
‘But not men with sticks.’
‘No. Not men with sticks. We will never see the men with sticks again. And we’ll eat apple pie and roast lamb and your daddy will say, “You are such a fine big boy, the best big boy in the whole wide world.”’
A cry was muffled across the hut. Nancy saw Moira bury her face in her hands.
She quickly kissed Gavin’s cheek. Despite the lack of water, the dirt, the stench of the latrine, the too-fragrant dried fish, Gavin always smelt sweet. ‘Now you go and ask Mrs Hughendorn if she’ll play Old Maid with you.’ The older woman had made a set of cards from dried bamboo leaves.
‘Moira? Are you all right?’
‘Yes. I’m sorry. Stupid. Just being stupid. I just miss him so.’ She raised a tear-reddened face. ‘Will we ever see him again?’
‘Yes.’ Nancy had to believe that. It wouldn’t be fair to have gone through all this, and not to see Ben, and Overflow, again.
‘What is he doing now, do you think?’ whispered Moira. ‘If only we knew. Is he a prisoner? Did he escape?’
She carefully didn’t add the other all-too-real possibility: Is he dead?
‘I bet he’s having a right good time,’ Nancy said, equally carefully cheerful. ‘You can always trust Ben to fall on his feet. Bet he’s living the life of Riley right now.’
‘Really?’
Nancy nodded, imitating a conviction she didn’t feel.
It was funny. Overflow was in her heart. And Gran and Michael, Mum and Dad. It was as if she knew they were where they should be, knew they were waiting for her. She just had to live long enough and she’d see them again.
But Ben?
She didn’t know. Had never been able to feel her brother, the way Gran said she could feel both of them. Ben was … Ben. He was his own person. Not hers. Moira’s and Gavin’s perhaps. She loved him, deeply, dearly, but he was not hers to keep.
‘He’ll be right,’ she said again. She put her arm around Moira’s thin shoulders and hugged her sharply. ‘He’ll be right. You bet he will.’