On board the Fairsea
December 1949
The day had turned from hot to stifling, with the mercury soaring close to thirty-three degrees by mid-afternoon, the humidity oppressive and the barometer maintaining a steady needle on ‘stormy’. After the Crossing Ceremony, the outer decks had remained crowded with passengers seeking a cooling breeze, however by late afternoon the winds picked up and the first drops of rain sent everyone running for cover. Karl remained in position by the rail until after sunset as the ship rolled beneath his feet, watching the storm bear down on them, exhilarated by the flash of lightning in the distance and the crash of thunder around him. Eventually he, too, was driven inside, wet to the skin but tingling with an inner warmth, as if the storm had awakened something that had been lying dormant within him.
The noise and heat in the dining hall assaulted him as he entered, drowning out the sound of the howling wind outside. He caught snippets of conversations in half a dozen languages, laughter, arguments, the sound of a violin playing fast and lively. The air was thick and suffocating, the heat compounded by the presence of so many bodies packed along the metal tables and benches, with the smell of boiled mutton overpowering the more subtle funk of body odour and seasick passengers. The mood, however, was excitement, and expectation as well for the crossing of the equator was symbolic, and in the minds of many traversing into the southern hemisphere meant they were now truly closer to their destination than their departure point. It was as much cause for celebration as the crossing itself and there was beer flowing freely and much joviality.
Karl queued at the food counter, disappointed that the menu for the night again consisted of mutton and mashed potatoes. He’d hoped, in honour of the occasion, they might be served something different, something more festive. Aside from the pervasive odour, the meat had a strong flavour and a stringy consistency he had yet to become accustomed to. Even so, he wasn’t going to let the mutton ruin a night of celebration. At least he had a meal, and beer to wash it down with no less.
Scanning the room, he wasn’t surprised that there was no sign of Hans. He’d become more and more reclusive as the journey progressed, avoiding the dining hall at meal times, keeping to his bunk when others were on deck, leaving the dormitory in the evenings when other men gathered to play cards or muse about what would happen when they reached Australia. He hadn’t said anything, but Karl suspected that living in such close confines with the many families on board had only served to emphasise his own isolation, accentuated his grief. With a particular aversion to the stodgy food served in the dining hall, Hans had taken to skipping meals, and Karl was worried that, tall and lean as he’d been at the beginning of the journey, he was becoming dangerously thin. He slipped an extra bread roll into his pocket as a temptation for later.
He hadn’t been able to find Hans after the incident on the mid-ship deck that morning, and that worried him. While Hans kept to himself, he’d never avoided Karl before. He wished he had allowed Hans to remain below decks during the ceremony as he’d intended.
Ernst and Wilhelm were seated at the end of a bench and squeezed over to make room for him.
‘Where’s Günter?’ asked Karl.
‘With his head in a bucket,’ said Wilhelm with a laugh. ‘He’s never been much of a seaman. And Hans? Isn’t he coming up for the party?’
Karl shrugged. ‘He’s not much of one for social events.’
‘All the more beer for us then,’ said Ernst. ‘Prost!’
The three men touched glasses and Karl took a long drink. The beer was tepid and heavy, in the English style, but still slid down his throat smoothly and gave him a pleasant lofty feeling. He tucked into his meal, if not with relish, then with a determination that he would not go hungry again.
The talk was all about the end of the journey and what they would find in Australia. Wilhelm joked of kangaroos hopping down the city streets and being eaten by sharks or crocodiles. Ernst debated more seriously about what sort of jobs they would find. Having been sponsored by his father’s cousins who had a farm in New South Wales, he didn’t want to burden them with the upkeep for himself and his young family any longer than necessary.
‘I heard they’re building a dam and are sending immigrants there as common labourers,’ he said. ‘What do I know about building a dam? I’m no labourer. Did I study at university for six years to be a labourer?’
‘They are indeed building a dam,’ said Wilhelm. ‘It is where Günter and I will be going – to the Snowy Mountains. I didn’t think they had snow in Australia. I thought it was hot all year round.’
‘I think there is a lot we don’t know about Australia,’ said Karl.
‘You’re going to Australia to labour on a dam?’ said Ernst. ‘And Günter as well? He is a brilliant man. What a waste.’
‘No, no,’ said Wilhelm. ‘They need engineers and master builders as well as labourers. They were recruiting, and we signed a two-year contract in exchange for our fares. I hear the pay is quite good and it will set me up for what I really want to do in Australia. Run a vineyard.’
‘A vineyard?’
‘Yes. Fresh air, sunshine and all the wine you can drink. What more could a man want?’
They laughed, and Karl took another sip of his beer. The more he talked to the other passengers, the more grateful he was for Hans’s generosity in paying his passage. He would rather be in debt to his friend than indentured to a strange government, even the government of his new country. Hadn’t he left Germany for that very reason? To escape the domination of the Allied countries that were in control there? Hadn’t he deserted Grete and his parents to avoid being transported to a labour camp in Russia? Yes, he was fortunate, indeed.
‘And you, Karl?’ said Ernst, bringing him out of his reverie. ‘What do you want from Australia? What are your dreams?’
Karl drew a deep breath before answering. ‘Truthfully? Nothing more than a quiet life. Honest work, a home to call my own and my Grete by my side.’ The words called forth an image of her in his mind, an afternoon they’d spent on the river in a small rowboat, her hair blowing about her face in the breeze, her eyes crinkling at the edges as she laughed at his attempts to turn the boat against the current. ‘I miss her terribly.’
‘It would have killed me to leave my Helga behind,’ said Ernst. ‘And now, with the baby coming . . .’ He left the sentence hanging, staring into his glass before draining it in a single swallow.
Rising abruptly, he staggered off, returning soon with three more beers. ‘To Australia!’ he cried.
‘To Australia,’ echoed Karl and Wilhelm.
Ernst took a long draught, wiped his mouth and held his glass aloft once more. ‘To my darling Helga.’
‘To Helga.’ They drank again.
‘To my son!’ Ernst’s eyes grew weepy. ‘May his future be bright.’
‘Or your daughter,’ said Wilhelm with a wink.
‘Yes, or my daughter.’
Karl drained his glass and set it down, his head swimming. The noise level had risen steadily, and Karl had to shout to make himself heard. ‘Your child will be born an Australian. The first of a new generation. His future is sure to be bright.’
‘To my Australian son!’ Ernst raised his glass and, finding it empty, scooped up Wilhelm’s instead.
Wilhelm gave a cry of protest and grabbed for the glass.
‘I must drink to my Australian son,’ Ernst said.
‘Get your own,’ said Wilhelm. They tussled for it and beer sloshed onto the man sitting across the table. Wilhelm wrested the glass from Ernst’s grasp and guzzled down the rest of the beer.
Ernst howled. ‘What have you done? Do you wish ill on my unborn child?’
‘No, no.’ Wilhelm raised the empty glass. ‘To your unborn child.’ He slurped the last drops from the glass, licking his lips.
Ernst slumped on the bench, head in his hands. ‘My son. I’ve doomed him. I’ve doomed us all.’
Karl patted him on the back. ‘Nonsense. No one is doomed. It’s just a bit of fun.’
‘No, I have,’ insisted Ernst. ‘We were doomed before we ever boarded this ship. I’ve taken my beautiful Helga from her beloved Salzburg, her home, her family, her church, her music. Even her mountains. Are there mountains in Australia? How will she cope without her mountains? How will she live in this new land? How will she survive when I’m taken away?’
‘You won’t be taken away,’ said Karl. ‘They won’t split up families.’
‘But they will. They’ll find me and they’ll take me away, and then what will Helga do? My beautiful Helga, and my beautiful son.’
‘He’s raving,’ said Wilhelm. ‘Cuckoo.’
‘You need some fresh air,’ said Karl. ‘Go to bed, Ernst. You’ll feel better in the morning.’
‘I must find my Helga,’ said Ernst, lurching to his feet. ‘Beg her to forgive me.’
‘Go to bed,’ Karl called after him as Ernst wove his way towards the door.
‘Another round?’ said Wilhelm.
Karl nodded. ‘Why not?’
~
Half an hour later, Karl and Wilhelm left the dining hall, arms flung across each other’s shoulders, singing the chorus of a drinking song the violinist had been playing, rousing the crowd to full voice in drunken unison. A glimpse out the porthole showed the storm had abated; however, the swell still tossed the ship from side to side.
Karl leaned heavily on Wilhelm as they stumbled and wove their way down the corridor with much laughter. He couldn’t recall when he’d felt so light-hearted. Soon they would get their first glimpse of the coast of Australia, and not long after that would dock in Fremantle. On Australian soil. Then less than a week to Sydney. The name seemed to glow with promise. First he would find a job, a place to live, and then Grete would join him. They would buy a house and land. Australia had so much land. Grete could have a garden and chickens and goats, as she’d had in the Black Forest when she was a child. They would have children, lots of them, who would be natural-born Australians, born to be part of this new land, this new country, who wouldn’t long for Germany.
‘Will you ever go back?’ Karl asked, pulling Wilhelm to a halt and blinking at him blearily.
Wilhelm seemed to know without asking that Karl wasn’t talking about returning to the dining hall.
‘I will. Germany is in my heart forever, and I’ll visit her as I visit my parents’ graves. With honour and respect, and then I’ll return to Australia where my new life is.’ He elbowed Karl in the ribs. ‘And hopefully my new wife as well, eh? I think the women in Australia will be beautiful, and they’ll fall over themselves to have a chance with a handsome, charming man such as me.’
Karl laughed and clapped him on the back and they continued on their merry way. As they walked, they bantered about what made a woman beautiful, and what type of woman would make the best wife for Wilhelm.
Rounding the corner near the shower facilities, Karl heard raised voices inside. Putting a finger to his lips to silence Wilhelm, he listened. As he feared, it was Hans and Aron, arguing yet again.
‘Leave them,’ said Wilhelm. ‘You cannot make either of them see reason.’
‘They’ll kill each other before we ever reach Australia.’ It was tempting for Karl to pretend he hadn’t heard them, continue on to the dormitory and write a letter to Grete. But even as they stood there, the voices became louder, the discussion more heated. Karl heard the word ‘Nazi’ and could hold back no longer.
The smell of saltwater and bleach hit him as he opened the door to the shower facility. Hans and Aron stood eyeball to eyeball in the dry area, only a small bench separating them. Hans had been showering, his hair wet and a towel flung over his shoulder. He wore only a pair of shorts and his ribs stood out painfully on his chest. Half a head taller than the Polish man, he was nevertheless outweighed by ten kilograms or more. If it came to blows, Hans would be the worse off.
‘I am not ashamed by what the Nazis did,’ said Hans, as Karl rushed up and put a hand on his arm. He shook him off. ‘Hitler was only working for the good of Germany.’
‘You call mass extermination of the Jewish people good for Germany? You say enslaving innocent Poles and Latvians and Serbians is good for Germany? Experimenting on living human beings is good for Germany?’ Aron’s face turned a darker shade of red with each statement.
‘That’s bullshit. American propaganda.’
Aron pulled his shirt up and turned his back, revealing a jagged scar. ‘You look at that and you tell me it’s American propaganda. You tell my wife that when our first-born – only two years old – was ripped from her arms, never to be seen again, it was just American propaganda.’ He flipped his shirt down and pointed his finger at Hans. ‘Open your eyes and your ears. Half the people on this ship have stories like mine – of beatings and rape and starvation at the hands of the Nazis – loved ones have been murdered at the hands of the Nazis. Nazis are not welcome here, and if you’re going to defend them, you’d better watch your back.’ He gave Hans a shove that sent him reeling into the wall, then turned and pushed his way past Karl and Wilhelm and out the door.
There was silence for a moment, then Karl extended a hand to Hans. ‘Are you all right?’
Hans straightened, ignoring the proffered hand. Karl looked at Wilhelm, at a loss for what to do or say.
A figure emerged from the shadows.
‘He’s right, you know.’ Ernst took a couple of stumbling steps forward to stand swaying in front of Hans. ‘You need to keep your trap shut. You walk around here with a chip on your shoulder about what’s happened to Germany, turning your nose up at the people on this ship as if you were better than them. Do you want them to think you’re a Nazi? A brownshirt who beat up old women and raped children?’
‘I never—’
‘I don’t care what you did!’ roared Ernst. ‘It was war and it’s over. Over! Do you hear? Here, on this ship, you must put your own feelings aside, or be labelled a Nazi. Do you know what they’re doing to Nazis now?’ He stepped closer to Hans. ‘They’re hunting them down, putting them on trial in a criminal court and they’re executing them. Yes. Hung from the neck until they’re dead.’ He took a deep breath and pointed a finger at Hans as Aron had only moments before. ‘You cast suspicion on all of us. If there is one Nazi on board, then there may be others. So keep your trap shut.’
He stepped back, stumbled and almost fell.
Wilhelm rushed forward to take his arm. ‘Ernst, enough. Let’s get you to bed.’ He exchanged a meaningful glance with Karl, who nodded. Then Wilhelm led a now-docile Ernst out of the showers.
‘Hans—’
‘No, don’t say anything, Karl. I need to get some air. Alone,’ he said when Karl went to accompany him.
Karl had no choice but to let him go.
~
Karl climbed into his bunk, disturbed by how quickly the night had turned from joyous to disastrous. He couldn’t fault Ernst for what he’d said. Or Aron Borkowski for that matter. Hans had to change his ways, see things from a different perspective, open his eyes and see the truth and stop mourning what could have been. The sight of the scar on Aron’s back brought to reality what many of them at the POW camp had thought of as American propaganda. How many on this ship were survivors of the concentration camps, how many had slaved in factories or mines, how many had lost family members; wives, parents, children? Karl didn’t want to think about it. But he could do nothing but think about it. He tossed and turned and eventually fell into a fitful sleep.
He had no idea what time it was when he woke. The rocking of the ship had diminished, and the dormitory was quiet, although lights were shining in a couple of bunks along the aisle. Karl rubbed his hands over his face, trying to erase the last traces of the confusing images that had haunted his dreams. After the events of this night, he knew he would view his fellow passengers on board in a different light. Glancing down, he saw that Hans’s bunk was empty, the bed still tightly made in military fashion as it had been when Karl returned to the dormitory. It wasn’t a good sign. Although some of the men took their blankets on deck to escape the heat of the dormitory, Hans never did, preferring the privacy and security of his enclosed bunk.
Karl swung down the ladder and moved quietly towards the door, conscious, as always, of the eyes peering out at him from other men’s bunks as he passed. Out in the corridor, the distant sound of singing floated down from above him. Positive that Hans would be avoiding the celebrations, he had a quick look in the latrine and the shower facility before climbing the stairs to the upper decks and making his way outside.
The salty breeze lifted the hair from his forehead as he exited, and he stopped to take a deep breath of the fresh air. As he’d expected there were a few men and women curled up in their blankets in the more sheltered areas of the outer deck; others lay flat out where they’d fallen, snoring loudly. None of them were Hans.
Karl moved towards the stern of the ship where a couple huddled under a blanket, their movements clearly suggesting the way in which they were celebrating the crossing of the equator. Hastening past, Karl continued his search down the port side of the ship and around the bow, still finding no sign of Hans. He paused at the rail, a horrifying thought occurring to him as he stared down into the choppy black depths below him, and then back in the direction the ship had come. Hans had been depressed, but surely not despondent enough to throw himself over the edge. Karl cursed himself for returning to the dormitory, for selfishly going to bed, and not following Hans and making sure of his wellbeing when he knew he was so upset. Would Hans have contemplated taking his own life? Had he sunk so low? Karl shook his head. No. He wouldn’t accept that possibility until he’d searched the entire ship.
It took half an hour to check the public areas, including the dormitories, corridors, outer decks, the dining hall and the common room, the latter two still occupied with late-night partiers, none of whom had seen Hans since the previous day. At his wit’s end, he tried the door to the crew quarters, but found it locked and returned to the outer deck. Soon the first signs of dawn would start creeping over the horizon, and Karl was forced to contemplate the real possibility that Hans was no longer on board, that he’d jumped over the railing and Karl hadn’t been there to stop him. He would have no choice but to inform the captain, although the odds of finding Hans in this vast ocean, with no idea of where or when he went overboard, were close to impossible. Karl wasn’t even sure the captain would try.
After one last circuit of the deck, Karl leaned on the rail and looked down into the sea, rolling and churning with the passage of the ship. He couldn’t imagine what it would feel like to plunge into those depths, the long seconds of freefall before the shock of hitting the water, the disorientation of being tossed around beneath the surface. Would he be sucked under the ship? Karl shuddered.
‘Hey! You there!’
Karl looked up to see a crewman on the deck above him.
‘Don’t lean over so far. You’ll fall overboard. This ship doesn’t turn around very quickly, you know.’
‘I’m looking for my friend,’ said Karl.
‘Well, if he’s down there, he’s long gone.’
‘Have you seen him? His name is Hans. Hans Whemar.’
The crewman thought. ‘German fellow? Tall and skinny?’ Karl nodded and he shook his head. ‘Haven’t seen him. Try the galley. Charlie caught him hanging around there the other day. Took pity on him and gave him a crust.’
Karl waved his thanks and hurried inside. The sign on the kitchen door said Crew Only, but it was unlocked. Pushing the heavy door open, he fumbled for the light.
‘Hans?’
Karl stepped cautiously into the room. It was a long galley kitchen with a large oven and cooktop on one side, and on the other a stainless-steel workbench with stacks of drawers and cupboards underneath and a servery into the dining hall which was shuttered closed. Pots and pans hung above the cooktop, and a set of chef’s knives rested in a rack on the wall. At the end of the galley was a large pantry. Karl had only taken two steps into the room when he saw feet protruding from the pantry door. He rushed forward to find Hans laying face-down, a pool of blood slowly spreading beneath him.
‘Hans,’ he cried, kneeling beside him. Gently he turned him over. Hans groaned, but didn’t wake. His shirt was drenched in blood, and there was a wound in his belly that was slowly seeping the life from him.
Karl placed his hand firmly over the wound.
‘Medic!’ he yelled. ‘We need a doctor in here!’