Page 2 of Sisters Under The Rising Sun
Norah has no more words. The cries of her daughter fill her head as she stumbles towards her destiny. ‘I don’t want to go. Please let me stay with you, please, Mummy.’Just a few days earlier, she had put eight-year-old Sally on a different ship and sent her away.
‘I know you don’t, darling,’she had cajoled. ‘If there was any way we could stay together,we would. I need you to be a strong little girl for me and go with Aunty Barbara and your cousins. Daddy and I will be with you before you know it. Just as soon as he’s better.’
‘But you promised you wouldn’t send me away, you promised.’ Sally had been beside herself, the tears flowing freely, her cheeks blotchy.
‘I know I did, but sometimes mummies and daddies have to break their promises to keep their little girls safe. I promise—’
‘Don’t say it – don’t say you promise when I know you can’t.’
‘Come on, Sally, can you hold Jimmy’s hand?’Barbara had said. She was Norah and Ena’s older sister. She spoke softly to her niece. There was some comfort here for Norah; Sally would be safe with her family.
‘She didn’t look back once,’ Norah whispers to herself as she trudges along. ‘She just boarded the ship and was gone.’
Entering the cordoned-off area of the wharf, passengers with the approved paperwork gather. Amongst them are terrified adults and wailing children, each of them struggling under the weight of their most essential possessions.
A group of Australian Army nurses wave their paperwork at the officials and are hurried through the fenced-off area. They stand to one side as civilians file past before another group of women in the same uniform burst through the gates. The reunited nurses embrace, greeting each other like long-lost friends. Amongst the newcomers, a petite woman pushes her way through.
‘Vivian, Betty, over here,’ she calls.
‘Hey, Betty, it’s Nesta!’
The three women huddle in a hug. Sisters Nesta James, Betty Jeffrey and Vivian Bullwinkel became firm friends in Malaya, where they were posted to nurse Allied soldiers before it was overrun by the Japanese army. Like everyone else here, they had been forced to flee to Singapore.
‘It’s so good to see you again,’ says Nesta, overjoyed to see her friends. ‘I didn’t know if you’d left with the others yesterday.’
‘Betty was meant to leave yesterday but managed to go AWOL when they were leaving for the ship. We both hoped we wouldn’t be sent home, there’s just so much to do here,’ Vivian says.
‘Matron’s gone to plead our case one last time. We’re not on the ship yet, so maybe High Command will see the benefit of letting us stay here in Singapore with those who are too ill to leave,’ Nesta tells them.
‘They’re boarding the launches now, she’d better hurry,’ Betty says, looking at the line of men, women and children climbing into the wildly bobbing boats that will deliver them to the HMSVyner Brooke.Bombs continue to hit their targets, churning the sea into waves and crashing them against the wharf.
Nesta is staring at the launches where the passengers are embarking.
‘It looks like someone could do with a hand; I’ll be right back.’
‘Do you need some help?’ Nesta asks Norah and Ena, who are trying to work out how to help John down the steep steps and onto one of the boats. It is now half full of distraught passengers, some weeping, others paralysed with fear. Norah feels a hand on her shoulder.
Norah turns to see the smiling face of a pint-sized woman in a nurse’s white uniform. She looks so tiny that Norah wonders how she could possibly help them, given that she, her husband and her sister are taller than the average man or woman.
‘I’m Sister Nesta James, a nurse with the Australian Army. I’m stronger than I look, and I’ve been trained to help patients much bigger than me, so don’t worry.’
‘I think we’ll be fine,’ Norah tells her. ‘But thank you.’
‘Why don’t one of you get into the launch while two of us help the gentleman down and you can take over from there?’ Nesta is politely insistent. ‘Have you been in hospital?’ she asks John, taking his arm as Norah lets go.
‘Yes,’ he says, allowing her to guide him towards the boat. ‘Typhus.’
As soon as Norah is safely in the launch, Ena and Nesta help John into her waiting arms.
‘Aren’t you coming with us?’ Ena asks the young nurse.
‘I’m with my friends. We’ll get the next launch.’
Ena looks around and sees a large group of women dressed in the same uniform.
As the launch pulls away with Norah, John and Ena on board, they hear singing from the wharf. The nurses, arms around each other’s shoulders, stand proudly, singing with all their might, loud enough to drown out a nearby petrol tank detonating into a ball of flames.
‘Now is the hour when we must say goodbye
