The Persimmon Tree Read Free

no other home but the Spice Islands. Shipping was at a premium and every rust bucket in the South Seas had gathered in the harbour to share in the chance to make an indecent profit from the fleeing colonials. Each daylight hour brought lorries carrying more packing cases to fill their holds.
    I was hoping to work my passage home on one of the cargo vessels that were making a small fortune. Capitalising on the growing panic to get away before the Japs arrived, they were loading their holds with packing cases and then selling deck space to desperate passengers. If the holds could be cleaned up, electric lights rigged and air piped below, they were loaded the other way about. The current rate was fifty Dutch guilders or ten Australian pounds for a square the size of a large packing case marked out in chalk on the deck or within the hold. If I was unable to work my passage, I had the required ten pounds, two months’ salary saved while working for W.R. Carpenter in New Guinea.
    I arrived back at the darkened restaurant and made my way to the tiny room at the back I still occupied until, as seemed certain, I was summarily booted out on the morrow. Lighting the hurricane lamp, I attached it to a wire hook hanging from the ceiling and then, for want of something better to do, sat on my small iron cot and started to pack my knapsack. I could have read, I suppose. But of the four books I’d brought with me, three I’d read at least twice and, if asked, I could describe in detail, as well as recall the Latin names of every butterfly and moth in the fourth, a rare and cherished edition of a book taken from my father’s large private library, its title a mouthful: A List of Butterflies of Sumatra with Special Reference to the Species Occurring on the North-east of the Island , printed in 1895 and written and compiled by L. De Niceville and L. Martin.
    My absurd journey in pursuit of a single butterfly had proved a complete disaster. I was alone and rumours of the whereabouts of the Japanese were becoming increasingly bizarre. People had almost taken to checking for signs of the enemy under their beds. It was unlikely that I’d be able to get back to New Britain — Rabaul, to be more precise. As was the case with Java and Batavia, it was being referred to as a Japanese strategic priority, though this wasn’t my greatest concern. I hoped my father, who was a missionary, and my expat friends would have already left for Australia and I could only trust that my local friends would be safe. In three weeks I would turn eighteen, whereupon, if I got safely back to Australia, I’d join up. The butterfly excursion to the Spice Islands had been intended as my last taste of freedom and, as it was turning out, a very sour-tasting one at that.
    Deep in thought, I was startled and surprised to hear a knock on the door. The six Javanese kitchen staff who occupied the remaining rooms in the compound rarely spoke to me and certainly never when off-duty. There followed a second, slightly louder knock and a female voice called out, ‘Mr Duncan?’
    I opened the door into semi-darkness, the lamp hanging from a wire hook suspended from the ceiling only throwing sufficient light for me to make out a silhouette etched against the outside darkness. ‘May I come in, please?’ the voice asked, each word accompanied by the tiniest pause, as if it had been silently rehearsed and now was being tested out loud.
    ‘Please,’ I said, stepping aside. Then recovering slightly I added, ‘Not much room, I’m afraid.’
    I caught the smell of fresh lemons as she passed into the lamplight and then turned to face me. ‘I am Anna,’ she announced, the words again carefully phrased.
    I confess that on the way back from the mooring I had imagined the Dutchman’s daughter as being big-boned, blonde and clumsy, probably, like her father, overweight and almost certainly dull. I told myself his anxiety for me to meet his daughter was because of all these imagined