Read Online SOMEDAY SOON by David Crookes - Free Book Online

everything. When the officer in charge
finally told Sergeant Maxwell that the women and children, who had
been patiently waiting on the platform all afternoon, could board
the empty guard’s van, the station was already dark under a
starless overcast sky.
    As Sergeant Maxwell bade farewell to his
wife, Faith looked around the station hoping to see Joe. She was
just stepping up onto the small steel platform at the rear of the
van when he raced up.
    ‘Bloody bike ran out of petrol,’ he said,
hugging her tightly.
    ‘Are you all set?’ she whispered..
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘When will you leave?’
    ‘In an hour or two, I hope,’ he whispered
back, his lips touching her ear. ‘This overcast is perfect. It’s
almost pitch black. All I need is a little wind.’
    The train shuddered, then began to move.
    ‘I’ll write soon,’ Joe called out as it
pulled away.
    Faith went inside the van and sat down on the
floor with Mary Maxwell and a few other women and the children.
There was a dim glow from a lantern hanging overhead on a hook in
the roof. A sack was nailed over the only small window in the van
to prevent the light from being a target for enemy aircraft. All
the women had brought food and water and blankets to sit on, and
everyone began to settle in for the long hot ride to Katherine.
    The train moved out of the station slowly,
picking up speed as it went along. After seven or eight minutes it
slowed down at the edge of town and came to a stop beside a water
tower, just as Faith knew it would. A few minutes later there was a
loud clanging of carriages and with a violent jerk the van started
rolling again.
    Faith turned her head to Mary Maxwell. ‘I
think I’ll just stand outside for a moment, Mary.’ she
whispered.
    ‘What is it, dear?’ the sergeants wife asked
anxiously. ‘Are you all right?’
    ‘ I think everything has finally caught
up with me,’ Faith said, getting up from the floor. ‘I just need to
be alone for a while.’
    The train was gathering speed when Faith
stepped outside onto the small guard’s platform at the back of the
van. She quickly closed the door behind her, then swung her legs
over the low rail of the platform and jumped from the van into the
scrub.
    Joe and George Maxwell remained talking
on the platform station after the train left the station. Maxwell
told Joe that neither he nor any of the other officers had seen
either Aki or Koko all day. Joe lied again and said he hadn’t
either. But this time, judging by the way the sergeant looked at
him, Joe wasn’t sure if George Maxwell believed
him.
    When Maxwell climbed into his van to
return to the police station, Joe set off down the railway track in
the darkness towards Faraway .
As he approached the dark shadow of the dinghy which he’d left on
the shore high above the water line, he was startled to see someone
sitting on the gunwale of the little craft. When he drew closer he
was even more startled to see it was Faith.
    ‘What happened,’ he asked in amazement.
    ‘I said I’d get on the train like you wanted
me to, Joe,’ Faith said stiffly. ‘But I didn’t say I’d stay on it
all the way to Katherine.’
    *
    Faraway lay in
dead calm water under a shroud of dense low cloud. In accordance
with the military blackout orders, not a glimmer of light was
visible from buildings on shore or from ships lying at anchor in
the harbor. Joe knew even the slightest sound would carry across
the still water and attract the attention of naval vessels and the
Army gun emplacements on the shore. Unable to start the engine, and
with no prospect of wind, his only option was to wait for the tide
to turn.
    Just before midnight, ever so
slowly, Faraway began to swing
on her anchor chain. In the late afternoon Joe had carefully marked
the position of the other vessels in the harbor and charted a clear
course through them which he hoped he could follow out to the open
sea without mishap, even in total darkness. With the tide turning
at last, it was now