In The Shade Of The Mountain

By M. K. Jacobs

SET IN CRETE, 1941, IN THE SHADE OF THE MOUNTAIN IS AN EMOTIONALLY COMPLEX STORY. 

As the youngest son growing up on a vast South Australian sheep station, Andrew Mitchell earns his living by being a gambler, fighter and a conman. He certainly knows that the fastest way to make money is to tell people what they want to hear. He was of

• Language: English
• Publisher: Shawline Publishing Group
• Release date: Nov 25, 2022
• ISBN: 9781922701657

M. K. Jacobs

M. K. Jacobs grew up in the suburbs of Adelaide in South Australia. Considered an accomplished classical pianist, genealogist, explorer and fanatic cat lover, M K currently lives in country Victoria, sharing the property with two alpacas and a family of cats, including 'those' two talkative Bengals. A former Flight Attendant who has walked across Provence, flown into LAX too many times to count, and spends holidays in Northern France looking over people's fences to admire their gardens, together with teaching classes on Strolling around Paris and Exploring family history. In the last ten years, MK's first series of novels centred on historical military fiction, taken from family history. Her writing has expanded to include Historical Romance stories focusing on her mother's World War II experiences and The Claire Lane Mystery Series, a 1920's 'not too serious crime series.' M.K. is currently studying for an MSC in Paleography, Heraldry and Genealogy at Glasgow University and a Certificate in Advocacy. This year she completed the PLCGS (Professional Learning Certificate in Genealogical Studies)- National Institute for Genealogical Studies.

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In The Shade Of The Mountain © 2022 Meredith Jacobs-Smith.

All Rights Reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Printed in Australia

First Printing: November 2022

Shawline Publishing Group Pty Ltd

www.shawlinepublishing.com.au

Paperback ISBN 978-1-9227-0161-9

eBook ISBN 978-1-9227-0165-7

M.K. JACOBS

As always to my son Rod, my worthiest creation,

and my cousin Marilyn a woman of encouragement.

Prologue

Isle of Crete, April, 1975

Andreas Linus disentangled the canvas water bag from the gnarled roots of an ancient olive tree, raised a weary hand to shield his face from the rays of the harsh Cretan sun, and thought about his life.

The day cast an evil shade of foreboding on the landscape from this rocky cliff site jutting into the sea; beautiful blues expanded to the horizon towards a white chapel beckoning the faithful to prayer.

Thirty-four years to the day, cut off from the coastline by a strong force of German Paratroopers, his platoon scrambled down this same rocky escarpment and, stumbling along the mule path, found sanctuary behind the small stone wall of a disused vineyard. Wounded and bleeding, he sort refuge in a makeshift first aid station, his right arm severed below the elbow; the blast effect from a German mortar round.

Today, this older man with an uncertain smile headed for the graveyard adjoining the harbour to view the consequences of that conflict.

With his platoon decimated by mortar fire in Greece, he was not compelled to capitulate to enemy forces who fell from the sky in droves, and the fate of Crete already decided.

A week ago, a stranger, in a three-piece suit, arrived at his small stone house set atop the seaboard, flashing official-looking papers from a black leather briefcase demanding. ‘Did he know a Captain Andrew Lionel Mitchell, late of the 2nd/11th battalion?’

‘No,’ he’d replied in halting English, waving his arms. No one referred to him by that name. Not now. The family who took him in and gave him succour all dead.

Martinis Cafolakis, the Greek nurse with whom he had fathered a child, was also in her ancestors’ arms. Their child, Califortie, a grown woman, had not looked past the craggy face of the old Greek partisan she passed in the dusty streets or was curious to enquire about his real identity.

The overweight bureaucrat from the Commonwealth Graves Commission wiped the sweat from his forehead and flicked through the pages of his file, intent on showing Andreas a faded photograph of a typical Australian soldier smiling into the camera. He knew well the photographer in his slim black suit, a line edged between his brows, looking for all his worth like a funeral director. His voice grew in frustration. ‘Linus, is this you, or is it not?’

Andreas studied the faded picture, parting his lips in a lopsided grin, then turned the paper upside down and read the number printed in black ink. WX 31413.

‘I do not know this man. I think you will find him lying by the sea at Souda Bay, in one of your white marble graves.’

He had already forgotten the visitor’s name when he saw him glancing at Annelida’s reflection in the glass mirror by the door. Andreas swore at her in Greek.

‘Fyge, go away,’ he hissed.

She paled, spat in his direction, flashing her skirt high and slamming the wooden divider to the kitchen. He was driven by some obscure impulse to yell at the man. ‘Out, and don’t dare come back.’

With a smile lurking on his craggy face, he scrutinised the obese official sinking into his sleek black sedan driving away, splattering an older woman with a spray of gravel.

‘What did he want?’ Annelida slipped from the kitchen, leaning provocatively against the frame of the crooked door.

‘Nothing of concern,’ Andreas said, buckling his leather belt. His face showed complete and lustful satisfaction as though he was expecting to receive something for nothing. ‘He’s chasing ghosts. I go. Have dinner ready; I’ll be back at five.’

She spat again in his direction. ‘You’re a pig, Andreas.’ Her whole being seethed with shame and anger. His attitude was nothing new. He took what he wanted when he wanted, and nothing or no one was going to dissuade him.

‘You may not speak to me in those tones. You knew what I was like when you agreed to the marriage with me,’ he replied, his eyes alight with something like fury.

‘I know the real reason because my father owed you, and my sainted uncle kept his promise,’ she cried, tears glistening on her cheeks.

Andreas jammed his hands into his pockets, turned left down the sharp curve on the road and hobbled away to catch the bus to the coast, needing to see for himself the marble stone edifice and the name carved with pride for all prosperity. Then he would know he was dead.

Chapter 1

Sunny Path Farm, Melrose, South Australia, 1975

Samantha Hosking remained motionless at the rusting farm gate enclosing two hundred acres of her family’s property and watched the cattle truck pass through the heat haze on the main road. Having a strong sense of impatience, she waved to the driver. She turned back to her task, glancing once at the sign, threatening No Trespass by order of the District Council of Mount Remarkable-Government Reserve and not fearing the possibility a police officer would jump from behind the trees and arrest her.

The metal bars along the gate were hot to touch, but she needed to take the risk and clambered over, walking the short distance to the homestead. If it was still there, she had her doubts. The map she obtained from the local Museum displayed the square ruined sign and nothing to indicate there was ever a homestead anywhere near the slopes of Mount Remarkables’ main ridgeline.

Couldn’t care less, she thought.

With a backwards glance along the deserted road, she pulled her large workman’s hat low over her forehead, took a deep, steadying breath and struggled into the canvas backpack, making a mental note to include a chocolate bar for sustenance in the future. The morning forecasting another hot day produced a thin milky haze, creeping across mile after mile of flowering curved caterpillar spikes, turning them into the funnel-formed blooms of the purple weed, branded in these parts as Salvation Jane.

Striking out across the paddocks with loping strides, and the map grasped firmly in her left hand. Samantha, aware the warm day could extract the odd snake to laze in the sun, as the overgrown path struck right and then a sharp left, white and green filtered light left splotches of shadow in patches of wild camel thorn; spiky branches reaching out to catch her old tartan jacket.

Her research would either defeat her or let on with the truth. Nobody to see her entrance or exit, not from this century anyway. Most of the old families had moved when the drought struck in the Eighteen Nineties, recklessly abandoning their farms and lanky makeshift dwellings, walking with heads bent in defeat beside creaking oxen led wagons, crammed full of household goods heading for the city and a new start.

A faint drawing, revealing a gravel path and the location of where the house was meant to be situated, was enough to satisfy her curiosity and hasten her steps before late afternoon.

Tracing an invisible line with one long fingernail, she looked up into the boughs of a giant eucalyptus tree. Gazing from his lower perch, a stout kookaburra’s prominent eyes watched the intruder, not interested in opening its sharp beak to laugh at her impulsiveness.

With a flash of blue on brown wings, he rose in a single balletic arc into the cerulean haze, leaving a single small, hiccupping chuckle echoing his departure.

Samantha trudged between the thick growth of tall spear grass and turned right again. Keeping her eyes glued to the track line, she sat on a large stump, its timber cut evenly, leaving hard saw lines in the wood. Tiny black annoying flies arrived on cue and waving her hand across her face in frustration. She had to admire the Bush fly’s ability to evade swatting.

The kookaburra’s mocking call startled her and twisting to look at his antics; the long-beaked bird remained perched on the dry stump, pecking at insects, and waiting for her applause.

‘You can’t fool me. I bet you’re related to all the others, who took it upon yourself to wake those children every morning before school.’

Nothing much had changed in this gentle valley between the hills. Mount Remarkable rose as a sleeping giant covered in a never-ending unbroken eucalyptus forest.

She knew a little about her great-grandfather Arthur. The family arriving by coach and four from Wallaroo, a port town on the western side of Yorke Peninsula in South Australia.

Samantha having visited Wilmington’s Catholic cemetery, her great grandparent’s headstones casting shadows over the dusty, waterless soil.

For years, the cemetery all but disappeared in the stringy brown grass frequented by a herd of black cows from Jacobs’ farm.

Father Madigan, visiting his flock from Peterborough Parish, spied the tops of the markers one late afternoon and stopped to investigate. What he saw brought a smile, and he found pleasure in visiting the local family memorials disappearing into the red soil. Some thoughtful person built an ornate metal fence as an enclosure to ensure escape was impossible and landscaped the edges, planting the iron roots of blue Dutch irises to bloom for generations to come.

The solicitor’s letter made two things clear as a condition of her inheritance.

‘Visit the graves and lay flowers. Get hold of two stones and put them on the crest of the marble slabs for remembrance.’

The stilted conversation with the solicitor elapsed into silence. He informed Samantha the keys to the house were gone, stolen by illegal campers or unruly neighbours looking to reuse the stonework for their edifices.

‘You can’t inherit the whole property, Miss Hoskings, if I may make myself clear, but there’s a small parcel of land across the Melrose Road.’

He shuffled the remaining papers and removed a ‘deed of sale’ before speaking again. His eyes weary and bloodshot, and she thought how dull his life was if this was his true vocation. He rambled on about legalities and what she could or could not do.

‘The rest you understand at present belongs to the State Government of South Australia. The original premise, I understand, was to include this region into the Mount Remarkable State Forest Area.’

‘However, this morning, I received word from the Shire Council stating you are welcome to hike into the site of the original homestead, but that young lady is where the inheritance ends.’

Chapter 2

The walk in to the property was taking longer than she anticipated, and if by magic, partially hidden between a stand of stunted bushes, the ruin appeared.

Picking up the pace, she broke into a mad dash, running along the boundary fence like a crazy woman, and stopped abruptly where the gap in the fence line indicated the missing gate.

Euphoria gave way to a resounding ‘Yippee.’ The map was correct.

‘You’re still standing, or what’s left of you,’ she said, stretching out her arms to caress the cool outer walls covered in original alabaster. One side supported a fallen pepper tree, shifting shade home to a mob of kangaroos lazing in the grass. Around her, the Flinders Ranges’ harsh weather took its toll on rusting farm machinery eaten away by the elements; a hay baler pressed into a wave of purple flowers beside the corroding wheels of an old horse cart.

She noted the barbed wire fencing had fallen away from around a derelict water tank leading down worn stone steps to a cellar. A carpet of tufted yellow flowers clustered around the protruding tap; red and rusted and aged, not even the odd trickle was emanating from its lip.

Scrambling in her backpack, the pencil drawing showed a sizeable rambling farmhouse with its front windows angled towards the west, sheltering a generation of the family who remained scattered to the four winds.

What would her grandmother have thought of the future? A granddaughter returning like a lost sheep to the fold after ten years of absence and with it no rhyme or reason to her thoughts?

With a faint yearning for another time when all was right with the world, she thought of the incident in her past laying claim to the one man she had loved would disappear forever.

A quiver of resistance ran through her, and she slumped on the cracked stoop and cried tears of grief and speculated on what made her hold on to this journey of remembrance and not face the truth. Why couldn’t she get on with her life and lock those memories away? Why dwell on something over and done with?

She hadn’t paid attention to the racket, not until the flock of white cockatoos took off in fright, nor the noise of the four-wheel drive’s rattling engine racing at full speed, slamming on its brakes and skittering to a halt in a wave of fine dust.

‘Hey, what are you doing here?’ A harsh male voice shattered the silence, and Samantha cast a startled glance in his direction.

‘Hey, did you hear me? What the hell are you doing in here? You’re on a private reserve. You can’t be that blind.’ She still couldn’t see the owner.

Samantha peered through the settling dust cloud and glimpsed long tanned legs encased in brown shorts and workman’s boots slip the front seat. She couldn’t see his face, not yet, and considered whether she should ignore him.

Whoever was ordering her around would stop now if she had her way. This was her property, her family’s heritage, and didn’t she have rights?

Absorbed in a stream of thoughts, she wiped the tears away with the back of her hand, reached down to pick up her backpack, screw off the plastic top of her water bottle, and allowed the lukewarm water to moisten her lips.

With a loud slam of the vehicle’s door, the owner of those tanned legs appeared from behind the pepper tree. As he stood before her, a shiver of emotion ran through her body.

‘Are you apathetic or plain ignorant?’ A smirk sprang to his lips and running a finger across the bridge of his nose, he continued to deliver this tirade with a menacing look of authority.

She turned her head and enquired. ‘And who’s asking?’ A wild rush of emotional sensations triggered something in Samantha’s brain as a bewildering sense of disbelief swept over her. How was it she attracted to this man?

Chapter 3

Cooney Downs, Mt Remarkable, 1975

Elizabeth

A hint of Indian summer fills the air as another day dawns over the dry pastures, and a gentle wind permeates the trees with a rustling murmur. I concede the weather during the past week is most extraordinary.

Not a day passes without thunderstorms raking the skies in the late afternoon, bringing the taste of impending rain, but the smatterings have not exceeded to make inroads on the land, and the wheat crop suffers, burning them to crisps on their stems. Lining the creek banks, the ribbon of Cootamundra wattles’ blue-purple foliage hang low in the heat, and smoke haze from the fires in the individual survey area over to the west make it difficult to breathe.

The most recent brush fire started from a single lightning strike over by Macy’s farm near Terka, the trees on the southern boundary filling the air with shredded leaves and the pungent smell of burnt eucalyptus. The sunlight obscured by dusty smoke throws up pale shadows from the pepper trees shading the veranda.

My son, Shire Ranger Casey Mitchell, joined with other farmers to battle the flames to keep the fire under control. Though the men thought they’d conquered the fire during the night, the following day, a flare-up occurred.

The volunteers stayed up watching, and most were weary to the bone as angry flames raced across the flat pasture, gobbling up all in its wake. Burning incendiaries flew across the crowns of the trees, exploding in the trunk of a bent eucalyptus near the shearing shed, splitting it down the middle from stem to tip.

Standing inside the flyscreen door, lifting a tattered apron to shield my face from the smoke, I’m surprised by a flock of pink galahs peeling away in fright from the shelter of the pine tree. Deliberating about the original owner of Cooney Downs, during the winter of last year, I unearthed the original pencil drawings by George Goyder, the Surveyor-General for the South Australian Government, from the dusty shelves of the Municipal Library.

He was asked to map the boundary between those areas which received good rainfall and those experiencing long-time drought. The man was right, of course. The demarcation border judged as Goyder’s Line was marked on the original surveyor’s map. He wrote ‘liable to drought, with the fields to the south deemed arable.’

At the turn of the century, the original house was built of warm amber stones collected from the creek, and broken cut branches smoothed down to solid wearing planks. This residence was initially four rooms, encompassed with beautiful high ceilings and none too vertical walls: a private haven for three generations of my husband’s family.

Evident in the external stonework is indented marks where a rolled veranda once graced the front, and a straight tin porch shaded the back.

In the early years of my marriage to Thomas Mitchell, our bed positioned in the middle of the room, for some reason owing to my twin sister Marion, who suggested the Chinese art of Fengshui would make a difference to our sex life. I laughed at her indifference, considering I still loved to watch the ceiling rose dance around the single electric globe, like a ballerina dressed in a white tutu.

When Tom inherited this house from his Nan, a local builder remarked the structure required lots of maintenance. The chimneys are cracked in places if you look closely, leaving jagged lines across the inner ingress. One mammoth has long since fallen, existing now as a pile of red bricks stacked against the outside wall. The tin roof leaks in cold rivulets dripping down the dividing panels, like a rotten sieve when the drought breaks, and torrential rains flood the dry land, and the Terowie River bursts its banks.

Thus, I admit, a week of mumbling and groaning by my son and his father, and this is further debated when buckets and towels remain in short supply when my mopping skills leave me exasperated. I try hard, once again, not to nag Tom about replacing the roof before we all drown.

It has been a tough year on all fronts. The grain crops struggled to survive in the summer heat, and the new dam runoff from the first creek reduced to muddy pools. As the fields of wheat, sun themselves, it’s approaching Christmastime, and the cheerful chatter of my large family gathering will once again reverberate in the still air.

Tom, over the past few months, expressed concern again about the inheritance of the farm. Our two boys not keen to desire the hard life on the land as they saw it. Jackson, my youngest boy, opted instead to join the Army.

The day an official-looking car demolished my prized roses in their haste to make the announcement. I was furious at their lack of respect.

Watching cautiously from the front windows, the driver, a lad of no more than twenty, screeched to a halt raising a dust cloud covering everything in its path, including my newly washed white bed sheets on the clothesline.

Neither did those two starched men, one wearing a military chaplain’s insignia, who marched in single file up to our front door offer any sign of apology or compensation. Curt and to the point, there was no debating that Jackson was tragically killed on duty. Under suspicious circumstances, the Army told us and not too keen to elaborate on what had occurred. All confidential, the Chaplain said, in a gruff voice, they professed to be sorry and ashamed for their lack of telling our family the truth. What a cruel and useless resolution?

Which leaves Casey. Approaching his mid-thirties, he is to everyone he meets, a reliable and thoughtful man, single, and with a mental burden I think he finds too difficult to digest. He goes to work as Head Ranger for the local Shire Council, with skill and promptness, and we often ask ourselves why he works all over the district and as far away from the farm as he can manage in a single day.

Torn between frustration and admiration, I settle in the oldest part of the house; Nan christened the parlour, happy to enjoy a moment of respite for a change.

No matter which way you look at it, summer is beautiful here in the Southern Flinders Ranges. The earth rejuvenated, and the graceful eucalyptus trees make a canopy of dappled shade, sheltering the house from the worst of the heat. There is a certain grace in those trees, and life holds a magical enchantment to watch our resident family of pink Galahs making low passes over the house, with the daring of fighter pilots witnessed in a war and a lifetime ago.

Once again, the threat of bushfires roars over the mountain, penetrating a black hunger and destroying everything in its wake. The crops, the sheep, the home paddock, along with my beautiful antique roses and the trees we had planted when the water supply was plentiful. In my innermost thoughts, I fear for our lives.

This is not a yearly occurrence after all, and on a clear day, from the small hill to the east, you can see the jagged outline of the coastal fringe of the Spencer Gulf visible across miles of brown paddocks.

A request arrived from the local Historical Society to write an analogy about my husband’s family history. I spend the coolness of the morning going over my notes as a casual writer of poetry and short stories, most unpublished. Introduced in the ‘Wilmington Press’ newspaper as the infamous Elizabeth Mitchell, born into another family of local farmers, on the McKenzie’s from Wirrabara, I was quoted as saying, ‘to get down on paper what happened only in my head.’

As I approach middle age, somewhere around fiftyish, there was something to be said about ‘writing memories.’ For the life of me, I agreed after much deliberation to take on this simple task.

‘The bones, dear,’ Old Doris, Mrs Nosey Parker Wilson said one morning, catching me unawares outside the General Store.

‘Get it down, and we can make up the rest. If you have time, have someone visit your adjacent property, Sunny Park farm, I’m sure you will manage it.’

Leaving me with little choice to avoid a full-on confrontation on the assumption we make it up, I agreed a second time to her request.

My composition begins in note format, putting my name on the top to verify who was responsible for these ramblings and found one morning, to my utmost surprise, an old Remington typewriter left on the kitchen table.

‘Thought it might help,’ Tom said. ‘Now you have started, it’s best to make it readable, so the folks in town can understand what this is all about.’ The pile of off-white linnet paper grew more prominent by the day.

Tapping away, writing the date, and keeping the whole thing in perspective, I am not, in my experience, a real writer by any means. My school reports stated spelling was my forte, although my grammar could sometimes use some work.

These hurried lines are in the infant stage and will be edited by the strait-laced Mrs Doris Wilson, a stalwart in the district, who taught my brood and everyone else’s children in the community. Reading aloud from the missive engaged within the typewriter’s bonds, I doubt if any of this is true.

‘Timothy Jones, who proved to be Annie Mitchell’s older brother, reported in a letter the extensive plains and rugged land had made him a decent living and could support a growing family. He couldn’t say Charles and Annie would have an easy time, but reassured the pair there was plenty to gain and little to lose.

‘Three years later in Eighteen Ninety-Three, Annie and her husband bought two hundred and sixty acres, christened it Cooney Downs reflecting their Irish roots, and started building a dynasty on this property placed between the towns of Melrose in the West and Wilmington further up the Main North Road. With grandiose plans for making decent living farming wheat and running a few hundred sheep, Charlie had made his money in the mines at Wallaroo, working long hours to boost the family’s coffers and to ensure the South Australian Government granted him a lease.’

Okay, that’s enough for today. The time having raced away, the clock above the kitchen fireplace gives me a moment to mull over what we will have for dinner, feed the chooks and the cat. I was hoping I could bring in the last of the washing, drying, idling in the dying heat and find a cool spot to recharge my batteries.

Last Sunday morning, we motored into Melrose to attend the local Church services as our usual practice.

Tom’s pseudo grandmother, Rose Mitchell, still very much alive at the grand old age of eighty-five, toddled purposely like an old-fashioned ship of the line going into battle and shoved several batches of smeared pages, including birth certificates in plastic covers into my hands.

‘I’m not Thomas’ real grandmother,’ she whispers behind an arthritic hand. ‘I sort of took over when Annie died. We were never married. No one knew, not even the children. We thought ourselves very scandalous for the time. But I loved Tom’s grandfather very much, and nobody had the nerve or the balls to discuss how we were related. There were several children of obscure parentage around the place and some funny goings-on during those years. You see, the kids are all connected in some way or another. Not to mention, the Hoskings, the Arthur family, and those dirt-poor Curtis’s who had no idea how to farm.’

Rose hadn’t finished her speech. We liked to listen to her gossip and suspected she had plenty of family secrets to divulge.

‘The legal men had a field day. We take from the Irish and the Welsh. You see, my dear, it’s well documented we all have a peculiar and haunted look about us.’ She whispers something to Tom. He chuckles at her suggestion and forgets to tell me about it later.

Nana Mitchell, who our family suspects are in the final stages of senility, grips my wrist, digging her sharp fingernails into bare flesh to draw out my attention.

‘Are you listening to me, Elizabeth, because I’m speaking to you, dear? I may not be around for much longer. Please come down off your cloud and listen.’

Tom, as always, the peacemaker, gives his grandmother’s shoulder an encouraging squeeze and asks her would she like to sit. Rose, a stubborn woman at the best of times, raises her eyes to peer whimsically at her grandson.

‘Your grandfather Mathew contemplated a better life with his girls would be forthcoming if they followed her brother Timothy to South Australia.’

It was poignant not to comment on the woman’s turn of phrase, and I held misgivings if her mind was here or profoundly in the past. The Mitchells all sounded so complicated when you make sense of all the children and grandchildren. But there it is. The family who emigrated to the colonies are now my family whether I like it or not. There is no turning back now.

The old house will eventually give up its secrets if I dig deep enough and find the patience not to strangle Doris Wilson the moment she walks in my front door. Please don’t consider this makes me the murdering type, nor in my wildest dreams do I find myself unreasonable, but she is grating on my nerves, and the sooner this project is finished, the better.

For now, there are other tasks to occupy my days. Finishing the second batch of tomato chutney in record time, struggling with three loads of washing, wrangling with the temperamental machine, and then a few moments to sit down with a welcome cup of tea with the cat sidling up to me, making meowing suggestions the poor animal is hungry.

I admit this wholesome narrative defeats me and reminds me of another time when Annie wrote. She was not unwell on the voyage. Unlike me, seasick and wishing there was some way to abandon ship mid-ocean during my escapades; and admitting I was no match for this brave pioneering woman, who showed raw amounts of courage emanating from a keen devotion to her husband and children.

Tapping away again gives me a clearer idea of what this resourceful couple had endured.

‘Depending on the weather, travelling to Plymouth to register for our immigration resulted in a tedious journey of three or four days. We had to find lodgings for two weeks before the Sir John Lawrence sailed to Adelaide.’

‘The voyage would take three months, approximately 12 weeks if the agent instructed the conditions right and the winds fair. Mathew made his way to Liverpool and found a ship, taking him on with a workingman’s wage.

Annie was to follow with the girls. Concerned the little ones would find it stressful, she relished on her arrival; Mathew would be standing on the wharf, waiting. This was the beginning of a long, long voyage’

Disrupted by the noise of the kitchen screen door flying backwards and banging against the hoarding, a voice startles me.

‘Finished yet?’ Tom asks, closing the door firmly against the sudden blast.

‘For a bit,’ I reply, not looking up, keeping my fingers firmly over the keys, waiting for another slice of inspiration to invade my thoughts. ‘Can you put the kettle on, love? By the time it boils, this piece should be finished.’

He leans across the typewriter, dropping a quick kiss on my forehead, and I sense he is studying my face. ‘I’ll make you a nice cup of chamomile tea and one of your famous Anzac biscuits. Interested?’

Tom, I understand too well, wants to take up the subject of Casey’s birth. On several occasions, he changes the conversation when it arises. The theme is always variable to something else. A glance at the back of his head, he must weigh up the adage: Was I happy?

My typing skills are getting better, and I’m sure Thomas is enthralled with the black script moving across the white page. He makes a sensible suggestion of sticky-taping the old letters to a small chopping board holding the errant pages upright, making it easier for me to read.

‘The barque Sir John Lawrence selected by the English Government Commissioners was a sturdy seagoing vessel adapted and refitted to accommodate the immigrants’ passenger compartments.

No one should survive this voyage and recover without a degree of angst. The crew, a rowdy lot of individuals, sang to their heart’s content, climbing the sails and making ready for arrival. The long journey was over—a long ocean trip on a restless sea of three months.

‘Three long, arduous months in the smallest amount of time, it took for two babies to die, and three men to succumb to illness.

This voyage had taken eighty-eight long days, and during the quietest times, Annie and the girls huddled on the deck in the bracing sea air at every possible opportunity.’

I plucked the page from the typewriter’s grasp. I sigh. ‘Done for the minute. I’ll read you the last paragraph.’

Reciting aloud to Tom is cathartic, marking the passage of Annie’s voyage and trying to imagine the hardships she endured with four young girls to consider.

How on earth had the woman existed beyond the area marked Goyder’s Line? The youngest, a tiny babe, God rest her soul, had died at sea, not long before they sighted South Australia’s coast.

With the first part completed, the ambiguous Doris Wilson makes one of her unscheduled appearances. The woman with no sense of decorum dashes through the back door, tripping over Ferdinand, our black and white cat, demanding cups of tea and something sugary to satisfy her sweet cravings. Could she possibly have diabetes? I should sneak a wily suggestion she speaks to the local doctor. The woman has acquired a few silly habits over the years and often creeps around like a thief in the night. My neighbour, Alison, found her examining an ancient tractor in their home paddock one evening. Her explanation for prying, she’s made it clear to us all: She is the teacher, and we deprived pupils of family history.

‘I’ll send the new animal doctor around to see you. She’s wandered about the farm over there: I heard in town.’

By there, I’m sure Doris means the disgraceful state of the property next door. There was talk Samantha Hosking has inherited the old place, but to me, it was small-town gossip.

A roll of thunder and a sudden gust of wind and raindrops the size of small bullets make patterns on the kitchen window. Tom places the brown teapot on the Formica table and touches a freckled hand onto my arm.

‘Good news for once.’ Tom’s face breaks into a broad smile. ‘Let’s go outside and stand in the rain as a treat.’