The Dog with Seven Names Page 7

  Everyone laughed and I thumped my tail on the floorboards. Hendrik’s small hand reached down to touch my nose. I licked his fingers.

  Fred’s other favourite story was about Jimmy Woods. People gathered around whenever Jimmy’s name was spoken. They all wanted to hear about his lucky escape.

  ‘Jimmy has been marvellous,’ Fred said. ‘Flying the wounded between Broome and Hedland …’ He paused, making sure everyone was listening. ‘And Jim must be the luckiest bloke alive!’

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘Well,’ Fred said, ‘he and Alf Towers left Wyndham in the Lockheed Electra just a few minutes before the first raid and then they landed in Broome just a few minutes after the Japs strafed the harbour. Jimmy missed both raids by minutes. It was pure chance. And when he did get to Broome, he was in exactly the right place to help. Jimmy loaded the ten-seat Electra with more than twenty women and children and brought them here to safety. Then he went back for more wounded.’

  ‘He saved me,’ a woman called.

  I looked across at her pale face as another lady added, ‘And my family.’

  The Dutch women loved Jimmy. One day the famous pilot stopped at the hospital between flights and they took turns to hug and thank him. Jimmy looked exhausted but there was a determined energy around him. He didn’t stay long. There were more patients to transfer. Before he left, Jimmy ruffled my ears and said, ‘So this is the wonderful Flynn I’ve been hearing about.’

  I wagged my tail and Jimmy grinned.

  While the evacuees waited for pilots to fly them away from Port Hedland, they shared their own stories. From under Hendrik’s bed I heard how Harold Mathieson and a young man named Charlie D’Antoine steered a little boat called Nicol Bay between burning planes and sharks to collect survivors. One patient said Charlie dived into the burning water to save a woman and her baby. I also heard about people drowning as they fought the strong currents, trying to swim to shore.

  ‘They probably didn’t understand our huge tides,’ Jock said.

  Late one night Matron sat beside Jopie, one of the women who spoke our words and also the words of the evacuees. Matron asked Jopie if she knew anything about Hendrik’s parents.

  ‘His father was one of the Dutch pilots,’ Jopie replied. ‘He left Java with our group of flying boats, but at Broome he didn’t make it out of his burning plane.’ Jopie swallowed, and I felt a cloud of sadness surround her. ‘As my children and I were pulled into a boat, I saw Hendrik and his mother jump through the flames. She was trying to hold his baby sister above the water, but it was too much for her.’ I heard Jopie’s voice waver and I wriggled closer, putting my head on her foot as she continued her story. ‘She shouted for Hendrik to swim ahead to a boat, and he did, Godzijdank. If it weren’t for that man, Harold Mathieson, Hendrik would also have gone under. He and Charlie saved so many.’

  ‘Does Hendrik have family in Australia?’

  ‘I don’t know. His mother was shy. She kept to herself with the new baby. I never met other family members.’

  ‘Is there any chance that his mother survived?’

  Jopie shuddered. As she looked down, I felt waves of terror and sadness. My ears flattened and I huddled against her leg.

  ‘There were sharks and burning fuel.’ Jopie wiped tears from her cheeks. ‘I pray she drowned quickly.’

  I watched Matron squeeze Jopie’s hand, then she said, ‘No one knows which town will be bombed next, but staying in Hedland is no longer safe. Lieutenant Taplin has ordered the evacuation of the town. As soon as Hendrik is strong enough, he needs to make the journey south.’

  ‘Hendrik can travel with my family.’

  Matron sighed. ‘Thank you. I was hoping you’d say that. Our equipment is basic and supplies are low. I’ll feel relieved once he’s out of harm’s way and being cared for properly in Perth. After everything Hendrik’s been through, he might not survive the terror of another raid.’

  ‘My children and I have been luckier than most,’ Jopie said. ‘My husband fought the Japanese Zeroes twice and he has been spared. Three of the women who boarded the flying boat with us are dead. The least I can do is help Hendrik.’ Jopie held up her bandaged hands. ‘And once these heal, I can change his dressings. I don’t have proper training, but I know basic nursing.’

  ‘You’ll be able to use your hands soon,’ Matron said. ‘There’ll be some scarring, but thankfully your burns aren’t deep.’

  Jopie looked across at Hendrik. ‘A few scars on my hands will not bother me,’ she said.

  Doc agreed it would be best for Hendrik to go south with the woman with the bandaged hands. Jopie sat with Hendrik for a long time, speaking in their strange throaty language. I didn’t know the words, but I guessed what they were talking about. By now I knew the desperate smell of evacuation.

  At last Hendrik whispered, ‘Kan ik de hond met me mee?’

  I didn’t understand the words, but Hendrik’s eyes told me what he was asking. He wanted to take me with him. I wagged my tail, but the woman put her hand on Hendrik’s shoulder and shook her head. Her eyes were sad.

  ‘Alsjeblieft,’ Hendrik pleaded, gripping my fur with surprising strength. I kept still.

  ‘Het spijt me,’ the woman replied.

  ‘Ik heb mijn engel,’ Hendrik said and tears filled his eyes.

  They spoke for a few moments, then Jopie told Matron that Hendrik wanted to take me with them. I barked.

  ‘But with three children of my own and Hendrik, it’s not possible.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Matron told Hendrik. ‘We’ll look after your engel.’

  Matron turned back to Jopie and asked, ‘Do you know what that means?’

  Jopie smiled. ‘Engel means angel. Your Flynn has become Hendrik’s guardian angel.’

  Every day aeroplanes circled the town. I heard Fox Moths as well as the ones called Electra and Lodestar. Their pilots came to the hospital to speak with Doc and call the names of patients waiting for flights. Evacuees came and left. Everyone said the enemy would soon strike again. Soldiers had strung barbed wire along the beach and they shouted at me when I came too close. I stopped roaming the town at night.

  Jimmy Woods and the other pilots transferred the last of our evacuees.

  ‘They’re going to Geraldton and Perth,’ Fred told me.

  As Fred loaded Hendrik’s stretcher onto a truck, I thought of my Elsie. I wanted her to know I was safe and one of these people might see her. Since I had no words to explain, I began dancing, just like Elsie had taught me. Round and round and round I twirled, until the patients cheered.

  Doc laughed. ‘What’s got into you, Flynn?’

  I woofed and kept spinning. Maybe someone would tell Elsie about the dancing dog at Port Hedland. If they did, Elsie would surely know it was me.

  Hendrik reached for me and a tear dripped onto my nose as he held me, ‘Doei engel.’ Then the truck drove away.

  After the Dutch patients left, Doc began flying ladies inland. He took local women to homesteads that hadn’t been abandoned or to another hospital at Marble Bar. I loved going with them. Sometimes there were children with the women. They tossed sticks and taught me tricks while we waited for Doc to fill Fox Moth’s belly with fuel.

  Then one day strangers came to visit Doc. They were dressed like soldiers, but their clothes were fresh-smelling, not dusty. The men said they’d come to take Doc’s plane. Doc’s heart thudded and I watched his hands open and close behind his back.

  ‘That’s impossible. I’m the only civilian doctor for thousands of miles and I’m in the air every second day. This week I’ve evacuated local mothers, performed three urgent operations in Marble Bar and Wyndham, as well as delivering a baby out past Warrawagine.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Doctor, I have my orders. The RAAF takes priority.’

  ‘Without a plane, my patients will die.’

  ‘Without your plane, soldiers will die.’

  I watched Doc puff his chest, trying to stand taller, like
a top dog, as he faced the strangers. Doc spoke in a very loud voice, but it made no difference. The men took Fox Moth.

  Doc strode around the hospital using the bad words Elsie’s brothers used to say when the Missus was out. Then Doc threatened to write a letter to the Prime Minister. I remembered Mr Curtin’s steady radio voice and wagged my tail.

  ‘It’s outrageous, Flynn,’ Doc growled as his pen scratched back and forth on a small piece of paper. ‘They want me to evacuate the hospital, but how can I move patients inland without a plane?’

  I snuggled against Doc’s foot trying to think of a way. Horses or trucks couldn’t get to the places Fox Moth could.

  A few days later Broome was bombed again and Fred said we should expect more evacuees. Doc made more phone calls and wrote another letter.

  Then everything changed again.

  5

  Lee Wah’s Gengi

  Late March 1942

  After the evacuees left, Matron ordered a clean-up. The nurses scrubbed the floor while Fred whacked mattresses and spread bedding in the sun. Lee Wah worked in his garden, picking tomatoes and planting seeds in long rows. I snuffled through the loosened earth searching for bugs. When Lee Wah took his vegetables into town I followed. I liked watching him swap vegies for meat and butter. Lee Wah and Fred were masters of swapping. They called it bartering. But since the bombing in Broome, Lee Wah often came home empty-handed.

  ‘Bloody War,’ he bellowed, kicking stones along the road. ‘Bloody Japs.’

  Lee Wah and Fred complained that the rest of Australia didn’t understand what was happening in the north. Even the Prime Minister, Mr Curtin, with his warm safe voice, was saying that rumours about the raids resulting in heavy losses at Broome were utterly untrue.

  ‘Should be telling the truth,’ Lee Wah muttered as he stirred mutton stew for dinner.

  Fred told me Lee Wah was grumpy because there was no more rice, but I knew that wasn’t right. Lee Wah had a bag of rice hidden under a floorboard. Each night, after the patients finished dinner, Lee Wah cooked a handful. He ate it with sharp-smelling vegetables. Once, I gobbled a piece that fell onto the floor. My mouth tingled and Lee Wah laughed when I ran outside to drink water.

  Without evacuees the hospital was quiet. All was calm, until the big storm.

  Before the wind began I felt jittery. The feeling was different to the fear I’d had before Elsie’s family left and it was different to the jumpy feeling I’d had before the branch fell on Dave.

  I paced the yard, tasting the air.

  I wasn’t the only creature who noticed that something was wrong. The change was clear to the birds. Long before the first drops of rain fell, a squall of parrots gathered in a tree outside the hospital. Between squawks, they stuffed their beaks with seeds and insects, then flew inland in one massive flock.

  The ants sensed change also. They climbed the walls, moving their eggs higher. Nurse Molly brushed some down, until Matron called her to empty bedpans. Lee Wah stared at the sky. He was like Elsie, always looking for connections between things.

  ‘Barometer is dropping,’ he warned.

  Doc, Matron and the nurses kept bustling about with their jobs while Lee Wah watched clouds gather.

  As the sky darkened, I continued to pace the yard. A storm was coming. I usually like rain. Slow fat drops were Elsie’s and my favourite kind, but we also enjoyed splashing in steady soaking showers. Even hard biting rain was exciting after the dry season, but this approaching storm was different. It felt dangerous.

  Fred rubbed his aching joints and grumbled as he moved beds off the verandah. Lee Wah looked at the sky and muttered some of the words that no one else understood. I’d learnt to guess a few meanings, but these words were new.

  Lee Wah called me. He held my muzzle and looked into my eyes. ‘Stay close, Gengi,’ he said, ‘cyclone is coming.’

  Lee Wah covered his vegetable garden with an old sheet. Then I watched him roll big rocks onto the edges of it. When I heard a frog call, I knew rain was close. Lee Wah ran to tie rope around the banging kitchen door. As the first drops fell, he called me again but I didn’t want to be inside. I huddled under the hospital instead, thinking about Elsie’s face as the air thickened.

  Matron closed the wooden shutters with a bang. The wind shook them open again and my ears flattened as Fred nailed them shut. Then I heard the gassy-smelling hospital lights snuff out and Bluey yelled for help.

  My legs twitched. The air kept closing in. I needed to run. But which way should I go?

  Run to Elsie, the voice inside me said, follow the ocean. But the soldiers had blocked the ocean. Run. Keep the ocean to one side, the voice whispered. But the danger was coming from the ocean.

  Lee Wah waved a bone. ‘Come inside, Gengi, quick!’

  The wind yowled like cats under a full moon. I looked around. Where should I go? Suddenly the hospital rat scurried across the yard. I raced after it. Not to catch it, but because the rat seemed to know what to do. And I didn’t.

  We fled inland, away from the ocean and into the darkness. The rat skittered across a paddock and I heard it scuttle between some rocks. I was alone.

  Rain splattered my back. I kept running. The drops became bigger. Soon my fur was soaked. Gusts and willy-willies pulled me sideways. I had to find shelter or be blown away. The rain blinded me as I ran towards two boulders. They made a small overhang. I squeezed underneath, pushing my nose into the earth.

  The storm became a wild beast, angrier than any Shorthorn bull that Dave or Stan had wrangled. I lay between the rocks, shivering as the beast raged. It bit and lashed my back. At last the savage wind dropped. Nothing moved and the strange stillness filled me with terror.

  Then the wind turned, angrier than ever. It ripped fence posts from the ground and flung them through the air. One crashed against me and I smelt blood. I cowered against the rocks.

  Remember Rivette, I thought, but the memory of that horse gave me no courage at all. As I drifted into a deeper darkness I remembered Hendrik’s bravery, and imagined Gus Winckel holding his burning gun.

  When my eyes opened it was daylight. Dry blood covered my nose. I couldn’t see properly. The wind was strong but no longer terrifying. I blinked and poked my head to one side. An eagle was circling. Some injured animal must be close to death.

  I edged backwards, out of my sticky puddle of blood, and limped away from the rocks. The eagle followed as I staggered past broken trees and fences.

  Find the ocean, Elsie’s voice urged.

  The way I’d been going felt wrong. I turned around and hobbled in another direction. Elsie was waiting. Mist blurred my eyes and I fell. Huge wings thrashed the air above me. My paws ached, but I crawled on until I came to a road. Then I collapsed.

  The eagle swooped. Its sharp claws pinched my back, lifting me. I twisted. Fresh pain gave me a burst of energy. I snapped at the claws, wriggling and turning. The claws loosened their grip and I fell again. Fresh blood dripped over my face, blinding me as I limped on.

  The eagle’s shadow blocked the sun and I took my chance. I had to escape. I had to find my Elsie. I hobbled blindly then yelped as a curl of fencing wire caught me. The barbs dug into my flesh. Each time I moved, they bit harder.

  The eagle hopped around the wire, its hooked beak ready to gouge. I saw its clever eyes checking the wire as wind gusts flicked sharp edges. The eagle watched for a long time. Then it screeched and flew away. There were easier meals than me.

  I lay in the wire, gashed and bleeding, but safe from the bird. The rain eased and as the sun rose higher the earth steamed. I panted in the heat, surrounded by pools of water that I couldn’t reach.

  At last I heard an engine. A car rattled closer then stopped. I smelt someone familiar.

  ‘What are you doing out here, dog?’

  It was the man from the small-hospital. I’d played with his boy while Doc was inside welcoming a baby. I whimpered as the man bent beside me.

  ‘Poor fella,’ the man croo
ned. ‘You’re in a bad way.’ He held my muzzle and squeezed drops of water onto my tongue. ‘There now, little Flynn. It’s okay, stay still. I’ll try to cut you free.’

  The barbed wire ripped my legs and face as he untangled me. Wriggling made it worse, so I tried not to move. When I was free, the man wrapped me in his shirt and carried me to his car. Then we drove towards the sea.

  The journey back was slow. Every bump in the road hurt, until at last I smelt the ocean. The man took me to the back of the hospital and called Lee Wah.

  ‘Ai, ai, ai,’ Lee Wah shouted. His voice sounded frantic.

  I heard Matron and Doc running towards me. Doc frowned as he examined my wounds. Then he gave me an injection like the one he’d given Dave. I struggled for a moment, then everything went black.

  Unlike Dave, I woke up.

  I smelt Matron’s soapy freshness before I opened my eyes. She was rubbing medicine over my fur.

  ‘Look who’s back with us.’ Matron smiled as I stretched my battered body. ‘There now, you poor mite. Stay still or your stitches will open, and if that happens, Doc will be cross.’

  I’d never known Matron’s hands could be so gentle. I licked her arm then tried to lick my wounds, but Matron held my muzzle.

  ‘No you don’t!’

  She stroked my ears until I fell asleep.

  The next time I woke it was dark. I sniffed the air. I was alone. I sniffed again. There were delicious smells. Mutton and damper. I was in Lee Wah’s kitchen. That was strange. I wasn’t usually allowed past the door. I lifted my head. If he caught me, I’d be in trouble.

  A sheet covered my body and I was in a strange kind of pen, like the cage the Boss once made for a bitch in heat. I peered around. Lee Wah’s Coolgardie safe was beside my cage and there was meat inside. I drooled. My belly was empty. I tried to stand. My legs wobbled. They were too weak to hold me.

  I blinked and shook my head. For a moment everything was fuzzy. I blinked again, then wriggled out of the sheet and started licking Matron’s medicine. Then I stopped and stared. My front leg was missing. I stretched my paws. I could feel my leg but I couldn’t see it.