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About the AuthorDulcie
May Stone, born Dulcie May White in A
prolific writer, Dulcie has previously published the following works: Fiction Spectrum Publications Included
in the International Year of the Disabled selection, Bologna Book Fair, 1981 1982 Jonny
Love Spectrum Publications 1991 Hullo
Fay Self Published 1997 Ask
Me about Saturdays SMARTBOARD Internet Publisher 2003 Chance’s
Children Spectrum Publications 2006
Fay The Australian Institute on Intellectual Disability, 2007
Dark Oasis Poseidon Books (an imprint of Zeus Publications) Non-Fiction 1971
Parent Power Mildura and District Educations Council Pub 1979
Teaching
with the Retarded Spectrum Publishing. 1988
Principles
of Voluntarism Community Service, Victoria. Publication 1990
For
Adults Only? 1993
Towards
the New Dream 1993
What’s
Volunteering & What’s Not? 1994
Parent
Power ‘94 1996
Becoming
a Writer Stone & Associates Pub Spectrum Publishing As well as a full professional life, Dulcie enjoys a busy family life with her four children, twelve grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren. 1939 - August 31st. In Britain, forces are on alert as the Polish crisis deepens. Britain is bound by treaty to defend the Poles if they are attacked. In Australia, Prime Minister Menzies outlines in a broadcast speech a range of measures to prepare Australia for a state of emergency. Munitions factories have been placed on a wartime basis.
n
Melbourne, Australia, fifteen-year-old Anne Preston, travelling home after a
school social, is listening to the wireless. As the bus passes Pentridge Prison,
where last year she played the piano at a charity concert for women prisoners,
she hears the announcement of the deepening overseas crisis.
September
3rd At
nine-thirty p.m. Australia and New Zealand, with Britain, France and India,
declare war on Germany. Jim
and May Preston, with their daughters June and Anne, listen to the news
broadcast. Jim Preston, a returned soldier from World War 1, thanks God he has
no sons. 1940 January
27th Two
thousand people are employed at the Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation’s works
at Fisherman’s Bend near Melbourne. Construction of aircraft continues daily
from seven a.m. to midnight. All jigs and tools are made in the factory.
Production of the completed aircraft has been speeded up at the request of the
Commonwealth. The
Preston family, after enjoying their annual beach holiday at Portsea on the
Mornington Peninsula, is preparing for the new working year. There are reports
of troop movements, and the sons of family friends have joined the armed forces.
The overseas war has greatly changed the way of life in mainland Australia.
April
24th The
Australian Treasurer, Mr Spender, blames the activities of the communists for
industrial disputes. He says they are undermining Australia’s war effort by
diminishing the supply of materials for home defence and the troops abroad. Jim
Preston, though not actively political, is an avid reader. Alarmed by Mr
Spender’s statement, he reads with satisfaction that the Commonwealth
Investigation Branch has a file on the personal and political life of known
communist agents in Australia. May
28th The
Belgian Armed Forces surrender to the Germans. The speed of the shock defeat
leads to rumours of the significant part played by Fifth Columnist activity in
bringing about the surrender of Holland and Belgium. By May 31st,
British troops, surrounded by German troops, are fighting a desperate rear-guard
action around Dunkirk, France. Studying
British history, Anne Preston is intrigued by the story of Lady Jane Grey, Queen
of England for nine days in 1553. In
her European history studies, Anne admires the feats of French heroine, Joan of
Arc (1412-31). In
her English studies, the assigned novel is Thomas Hardy’s, ‘The Mayor of
Casterbridge’. The majority of the class complains that the novel is
particularly boring. When the teacher requests comments on the book, the
students do not admit their criticism, except for Anne who, after being promised
support, finds none. She alone suffers the teacher’s displeasure. June
4th Allied
forces are evacuated from Dunkirk. A huge fleet of destroyers, ferries, fishing
vessels and river cruisers have delivered the British Expeditionary Force,
together with vast numbers of French and Belgian troops, from the prospect of
total annihilation by the Germans. Jim
and May Preston, as all Australians, follow the news of the evacuation at
Dunkirk and its impact on Britain and the Allies with great anxiety. If Britain
falls, the effect on Australia will be catastrophic. Anne, following news of
Dunkirk on the wireless and on movie newsreels, for the first time feels the
personal anxiety that is beginning to change Australian life.
June
15th Australian
Communist and Fascist Parties are declared illegal under the National Security
Act. Jim
and May Preston, greatly alarmed by Britain’s continuing vulnerability and the
potential consequences for Australia, fear for their daughters’ future. Both
June and Anne are close to the end of their school years. The war, which most
predicted would be over in a few months, is going very badly. It is bringing
fear, heartache, hardship and suffering to Australians, just as the ‘war to
end all wars’ did in 1914-1918. June
22nd At
Compiègne, France, the French surrender to the Germans in the same coach in
which the Germans surrendered to the French in 1918. As the armistice, which
puts half of France under German occupation, is signed, Hitler looks on. The
Preston family, as all Australia, hears the news of the fall of France with
intensifying fear. Can England stand alone against the ruthless power of Hitler
and the Nazis? How will invasion of England affect Australia? How will it affect
their fighting men overseas? August
20th Prime
Minister Winston Churchill pays tribute to the Royal Air Force pilots fighting
the Battle of Britain: “Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed
by so many to so few.” Jim
Preston reads in the Melbourne ‘Herald’ that Australian cricketer, Don
Bradman, has joined the RAAF and is placed in reserve as a member of an aircrew. 1941 June
22nd Hitler
breaks the non-aggression pact with Stalin. At dawn, the Russian Army is caught
unprepared by the German onslaught. Seventeen-year-old
Anne Preston is preparing to sit for her final school exams. Major subjects are
European History, British History, English and Mathematics. As school pianist,
she accompanies the school orchestra and plays on special school occasions. In
her leisure time, she plays tennis and is reading John Steinbeck’s disturbing
book, ‘The Grapes of Wrath’. December
7th Pearl
Harbour is bombed. The United States of America is at war. Nineteen-year-old
June Preston, having been employed as a secretary since leaving school, plans to
leave home to train as an Australian Army nurse. May Preston enrols as a
volunteer nursing aide. Anne is anxiously awaiting news of her Leaving
Certificate results. Jim Preston thanks God that Britain will no longer fight
alone. December
8th The
Australian Prime Minister, John Curtain, announces that Australia is at war with
Japan. “Men and women of Australia, the call is to you for your courage, your
physical and mental ability, your inflexible determination that we as a free
people will survive. My appeal to you is in the name of Australia, for Australia
is the stake in this contest.” Anne
is recommended for a Government-sponsored intelligence test to assess the best
use of her talents to work for the ‘war effort’. December
27th Construction
of air raid shelters begins in Australia. Jim
Preston plans to dig a small slit trench in the back yard of their outer
suburban home in Melbourne. The trench remains an unfulfilled plan when Jim
enlists for work in a distant construction camp. 1942 February
19th The
Australian mainland is under attack. One hundred and eighty-eight Japanese
planes bomb Darwin in massive air raids. Fears are growing that Japan is
preparing to invade Australia. Anne
no longer plays tennis. As many other young Australians, she has no leisure time
left for sport. She is training as a laboratory assistant in a metrology
laboratory outside Melbourne. Metrology is the science of measuring. Laboratory
assistants assess the accuracy of gauges used in the manufacture of machine
tools. April
25th American
General Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in the South-West
Pacific, lays a wreath at Melbourne’s Shrine of Remembrance. Camp Pell, near
the Melbourne Zoo, is the base for 15,000 American servicemen. Anne
and May Preston travel by tram to join the city crowds watching the traditional
Anzac Day March. Because of the growing fear that the Japanese are preparing to
invade the Australian mainland, Melbournians eagerly welcome the reassuring
presence of MacArthur and his men. May
8th The
Allied victory at the Battle of the Coral Sea off Northern Australia saves Port
Moresby. It is a major setback for the Japanese in their bid for military
expansion. On
Sunday May 10th, Anne, who has been St Margaret’s Anglican Church
organist since her early teens, is warned by the vicar to be careful. A serial
killer may be on the loose in Melbourne. The murder on May 3rd of
forty-year-old Ivy McLeod, whose body was found in Albert Park just outside
central Melbourne, has been followed by a second murder in Spring Street in the
city. May
19th A
woman’s body is found in a slit trench at the American Base, Camp Pell. News
of the third murder causes panic. The serial killer becomes known as ‘The
Brownout Strangler’. The
vicar at St Margaret’s temporarily cancels night-time choir practice. Anne’s
friends at the laboratory, as many others, no longer go to night-time movies and
dances unless accompanied by men; but brothers, fathers and boyfriends are away
at the war. Many girls are enjoying the company of the American soldiers
flooding the city. May
22nd Boyishly
charming American soldier, Edward Leonski, has been arrested as the Melbourne
‘Brownout’ murderer. Although
twenty-four-year-old Leonski has been arrested, fear still haunts the city and
suburban streets of Melbourne. Added to the collective fear of Japanese invasion
is the intensely personal fear that, because of the war-related influx of
foreigners, there are more ‘Leonskis’ out there. Jim
and May Preston feel helpless to protect their daughters. After only two decades
of uneasy peace, lives are again dominated by world war. Anne
Preston, though acutely apprehensive, illogically welcomes the unexpected
excitement the war is bringing to her life. June
7th The
Japanese Navy is forced to withdraw after four days of savage fighting on the
sea and in the air around Midway Island in the Pacific. Anne,
now a trained laboratory technician, has been dating Julian Reeves for a month.
A physicist working in an adjacent munitions laboratory, Julian is a member of
the illegal Australian Communist Party. Chapter One (Part Sample)1942 - June 4th. Edward Leonski, who pleaded
‘not guilty by means of insanity’ to the ‘Brownout’ murders, is declared
sane by American and Australian psychiatrists. He is sentenced to death by
hanging. (The sentence, confirmed by General MacArthur, is carried out in
Pentridge Gaol on November 9th 1942.)
June
11th. NSW coast. The ninth Japanese submarine is destroyed in
Australian waters in 10 days.
ulian
was late. Or was she early? Peeling back the cuff of her glove, Anne Preston
read the hands of her watch. Five twenty-eight. She was early. Of course. Julian
was never late but seldom early. High
on the steps overlooking the Saturday evening crowd, she waited under the clocks
of Melbourne’s Flinders Street Station. A conservatively dressed
eighteen-year-old, Anne, with her cropped auburn curls, pert freckled nose, oval
face, hazel eyes and creamy-rose complexion seemed at first glance neither more
nor less attractive than the score of girls around her. The
striking difference about Anne was the incongruity of her dress. Unlike the
bright colours worn by the other girls, Anne’s plain navy blue coat, hat,
shoes, handbag and gloves, as near to an exact match as the war-affected stores
could provide, were prim and spinsterish. Only close inspection revealed that
these, together with the absence of make-up except for the lightest dab of pink
lipstick, successfully detracted from features that could have been highlighted
and groomed to betray striking beauty. It
was intriguing. Seemingly anxious not to attract attention, Anne Preston was
achieving the opposite; her choice of clothing was attracting attention. The
prudish presentation, at odds with the artless beauty, was combining to
communicate fascination. To the curious observer, the enigmatic young woman
posed questions that required answers. After
checking her watch against the railway clocks, she looked out over the busy
intersection to Young and Jackson’s Hotel. “Your
friend let you down, Miss?” A uniformed American with a Clark Gable accent was
standing in front of her. Not
answering, she averted her eyes. Nice girls did not talk to strangers,
especially American soldiers. “They
told me I’d find company under the clocks.” He smiled, revealing a set of
perfect Clark Gable teeth. Don’t
talk. Don’t lead him on. He’d surely come from Camp Pell. She stepped down
to a lower vantage point. “No
offence, ma’am.” The handsome soldier followed. “I’m looking for company
at the movies.” She
blushed; she’d have to answer. “My boyfriend is meeting me.” “Sorry.”
The American soldier smiled his perfect white-toothed apology, and moved off. She
was shaking. He’d seemed nice. How could you tell? She was angry. Julian
shouldn’t do this to her. It wasn’t fair. Increasingly furious, she again
searched the pedestrians who were crossing with the green light from the
opposite corner. No sign of him. He was late. Around
her, the confusing bustle of uniformed men and chattering girls was
overwhelming. Heart pounding, praying to be left alone, she retreated up the
steps and located a safe space behind a pillar. The
streetlights, muted for the war’s brownout, fought the half-light of dusk.
Diagonally across the teeming intersection, the windows of St. Paul’s
Cathedral momentarily reflected the sunset in a mellow bronze glow before it
died, and the cathedral became a pale ghost in the darkness of its incongruous
location. Confidence
gradually returning, Anne stepped from her hiding place. Immediately,
Julian strode to her side. “Where have you been?” “A
soldier tried to get fresh with me.” Desperately wishing she could learn to
control the embarrassing remnant of her early teens, she again felt her face
redden. “I was frightened.” “We’ll
have to run. We’re late.” Taking her arm, he raced her into the railway
station, showed their tickets at the gate, flew down the ramp and, as the
whistle blew, ushered her into a crowded first-class carriage. The
train pulled out. “We’re
second class!” she protested. “All
classes are the same.” Julian squeezed into a narrow gap on the seat beside
her. “It’s
not allowed. They’ll catch us.” “Get
it into your head, Anne. In communism all classes are the same.” She
looked around. Had anyone heard? Of course they had! “Don’t
worry so much,” he chided. “We do it all the time.” She
glanced at the other passengers. Reading their evening newspapers, they seemed
not to have heard Julian. Or if they had, they didn’t care. It
was still frightening. “It’s
all right,” Julian reassured. “We do it all...” “Shhh,”
she begged. Sometimes Julian scared her. “Relax.”
He held her gloved hands in his. She
looked up at him. Was it really all right? “It’s
okay, Anne. Really. I’m with you.” His dark eyes burned into her. His
certainty was as impregnable as steel. “I’m
sorry.” “Feel
better?” She
nodded. He
released her hands. Folding them in her lap, she felt the comfort of his warm
body pressed against hers. Julian was no Clark Gable, like the handsome young
American soldier, but he was tall, slim, even-featured and always well groomed.
Although he was a member of the illegal Communist Party, he had a very important
job in munitions. Her mother didn’t trust him, mainly because he was seven
years older than she was. When he was home, her father never said anything about
Julian. As he’d always said, he trusted her common sense. Which was sad,
because when it came to Julian her common sense went missing. The
train clattered through unfamiliar and disconcertingly strange suburbs. She
peered out at the filthy broken windows of rundown factories, tiny houses with
ugly back yards no bigger than her bedroom, narrow roads no broader than
laneways and the hooded lights of the brownout. “Where are we going?” “It’s
a surprise.” He
was very serious. But then Julian was usually serious. She
replaced her hands in his, now limp and disinterested. Sometimes, guiltily, she
wished she’d never met him. Sometimes the strain of adjusting to his intensity
and unpredictable demands was exhausting. Only sometimes. Because it was his
intensity, his preoccupation with the war and his passionate commitment to his
beliefs that made him so very different from all the other men she’d ever
known. “We’re
here.” He led her from the train out into the dark street behind the anonymous
suburban railway station. “It’s not too far.” “Where
are we?” She blinked uneasily into the gloom. “It’s
not far,” he repeated. It would be his only answer. Teetering
precariously on high heels, she negotiated the decaying pavement. On either
side, barely visible, were small low-roofed buildings. Though she knew of them
only from the newspapers, she guessed she was in an inner suburban slum. The
stench of rotting garbage was sickening, the sense of watchful eyes behind
obscure windows unnerving. A mewling child, the distant whine of a factory siren
and the hollow tap-tap of her shoes were disquieting interruptions in the
otherwise deathly silence. Careless of her distress, Julian hurried on. She
wanted to call him back, but didn’t. At
the approach of a shadowed figure huddling into a heavy overcoat, he stopped to
wait for her. Catching
up, she shuddered. “Julian – how far?” “Shhh!”
He grabbed her arm and pulled her against the slimy bricks of an unseen wall. “Julian?” “Shhh!”
His hand closed over her mouth. Gently. The
stranger limped past, in his wake the stink of alcohol and the repulsive wheeze
of diseased lungs. A
few anxious seconds later, Julian released her. “It’s okay. It’s only a
drunk.” She
knew better than to ask what had happened. She didn’t need to. Julian was
worrying about being watched. Steering her across the road, he thrust open a
squealing gate, ushered her down a brick‑paved path and ascended shallow
steps to a tiled verandah. Her sense of impending danger was relieved by the
comfortable sound of a tinny piano being amateurishly thumped. Approaching the
softly lit stained glass door, Julian pressed a barely visible button. There
was no response. Click on the cart below to purchase this book:
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