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Journal of Brother John, February 18th 1942
I am not a skilful writer, which is why I usually fill this diary in using shorthand, where simple ideas are easily expressed and complex ones rarely arise. However, the events of tonight are unique, and deserving of a longhand account. That way I may never, even in senility, forget the smallest detail of the events of tonight.
When we realised Nullah was missing everything turned into a sort of hushed frenzy of movement. Brother Frank changed into some old clothes, and I hurried to prepare the boat. We were both caught up in haste- we knew well the conditions that faced us. The weather was poor, and getting worse, promising a storm; and we both knew Nullah, who had now been without food or sleep for over twenty-four hours, was in no condition to swim anywhere, let alone to try and reach that distant steamer that had appeared on the horizon only hours ago. Our only ray of hope was that the ship was still within sight on the horizon, glinting feebly in our lights against a menacing backdrop of cloud; by this we could steer our course, and hope to spot Nullah en route to the vessel.
It was a short trip, but filled with anxiety. The slightest movement set our nerves tingling. In the grim darkness that was looming over us with the clouds, every dark shape in the water looked human, every flash of brown in the waves like the boy's dark skin. We were at once terrified of not reaching him quickly enough, and coming upon him dead and drowned, or of passing him altogether in the rocking dark. Afraid to go on, afraid to go back, we jolted forwards through the choppy waters, trying in desperation to cover every patch of sea, every wave, with only our two pairs of eyes.
We had been going for some unimaginable time when a sudden call echoed through the wind. Awakened from our stupor of alertness, we started up, searching the waves wildly; but it was from the ship that the voice had come. We were quite close now, and its ghostly silhouette loomed over us. It was not moving; rom somewhere on the foredeck a light was being waved at us, and another call echoed through the wind and off the rollicking water. Brother Frank grabbed the lamp and waved it in acknowledgement, and tried to call back; but by now a gale was blowing, and the motion of the waves, with their rise and collapse, was so loud that words were impossible to make out.
Whilst this was happening I had, on a gut intuition, seized the motor control; it had occurred to me that if we had not passed Nullah, he would be around us now, for there was no chance he would have made it onto the ship- it was too high, and he couldn't have got close enough while it moved. With this in mind I pulled our little boat to a near-standstill, drifting only with the waves.
If I hadn't, it is very probable we would have sailed right over him and crushed him, for at that moment Brother Frank cried out to me, and rushed up beside me, pointing. In the gloom I saw that flash of resolve in his eyes, and all my anxiety left me. From then on we worked very much on raw instinct, and emotion had no place in our lives at all: we struggled as machines, tirelessly, with one goal obsessing our minds.
The waves were high enough now to spill onto the deck; everything was wet to the point of saturation, and a tremendous screaming gale, heavy with damp, forced us to shout to each other even at only a few feet. Nullah was around fifty feet away; only his head and shoulders were in sight, and these vanished frequently behind- or beneath- the waves. I thought it a miracle he was managing to stay afloat. He looked so small in that massive ocean that it seemed as though he would suddenly be swallowed up by its weight and power, which was visibly tipping our small boat all over the place. We struggled to within fifteen feet of him, but I was loath to go closer. If we did, a freak wave, or a surge of any sort, would throw the side of our boat clean against him, crushing his ribcage, or at very least forcing him underwater. And Frank knew as well as I that if he was ducked now he wouldn't have the strength to come back up.
Frank ripped his shirt off. "I am going in for him!"
"Are you insane!" I cried; but he seemed barely to notice me as he rushed to the side. The waves whipped onto his feet. I cried out again and grasped his arm before he could dive- the boat pitched with the sudden movement, almost tipping us overboard. "Look out there!" I shouted, imploring him, "look at the sea! If you jump overboard you will be swept away and killed!"
"It doesn't matter!"
"Doesn't matter? Good God, Frank, please-just listen to reason-"
I realise only now how very strange it must have seemed to him to hear that coming from me. In desperation Frank spun round, his blazing eyes catching mine and holding to them. Then, even as we rocked and swayed with the violent ocean, he grabbed my free hand with his and squeezed it tightly, and embraced me, saying passionately:
"You say Good God, John; but listen to me now, I beg you. Isn't it what God wants? Think of Jesus Christ, brother. Would he abandon any boy, coloured or not, educated or not, evil or good, to merciless fate? He who saves all of us unworthy souls! by the chance of success? Is His grace just a matter of probabilities? No, he went out to save us knowing, knowing without doubt that he would die- die humiliated, like a criminal! I can't be afraid now, by this, which is so small by comparison!"
"There are so many evil men in the world as it is; men who live their lives for themselves rather than someone else," his voice cracked. "And I always wanted to be a hero, but really I was one of them. I never had the courage to give my life for anyone else, it was too meaningless. But now I have found Jesus- and I would give it for him! If I die it will be God's decision; but how could I sing hymns, and be a priest, and pray- talk to the Lord Jesus like a friend!- if I just watched this little boy drown?"
As I looked into his face I witnessed a selfless resolve the likes of which I had never seen before. I felt my resistance burn away, into ashes. Finally I submitted. "But put you're shirt back on," I said, "because I'm not letting you put your life into God's hands without all the help we can give you here on Earth! Here, tie the rope around you, under your arms, and I will hold onto you so you can't be swept away."
He agreed, and together we moved with unified efficiency. Time swept by as we moved, denying my desire to hold on to the moment; and I could barely comprehend it when, abruptly, my old friend was diving into the water, to the rescue of one small half-caste child.
I remember those moments as a whirlwind of motion. Everything was moving: the sea, the boat, Nullah, Brother Frank; everything rocked back and forth with the waves, and this would prove our greatest enemy. As I watched, panting and heaving with the rope, as Frank battled his way forwards, it occurred to me how strong a swimmer Nullah must be to have stayed afloat at all. He had seen us, and I assume he knew what we were trying to do, and was fighting to stay still in the water, and aid our cause; but he must have been passing in and out of consciousness, because at times it was all he could do to keep his head above the water. As for Brother Frank, I can only imagine what tortures he must have gone through, as every now and then the rope would snap taut, shredding the muscles on my arms. What's more, the violence of the storm had soaked everything to an extreme. Everything was slippery and volatile-f Australian waters weren't fairly warm we would doubtlessly have died by hypothermia. Occasionally Brother Frank would dive, giving him a few seconds of relative calm to swim through. In this way he gradually gained ground on the boy. Still, it seemed that every foot cost him a mountain of effort, and a well of faith deeper perhaps than I have ever had until today.
And then Frank was right beside him. It was so sudden, but in that instant we were in no position to look on to the next. There was so much volatility and motion that I didn't dare try to guess the next event. As it happened, God- or luck, or something- was with us, and a sudden surge carried Nullah right into Brother Frank's arms; the sea making up in a second more ground than all of Frank's efforts put together. As this happened I was tying the rope to the mast, as a safety net in case my strength failed me. I looked up in time to glimpse Nullah's small form collide side-on with Frank's open arms, and slip right out of them. They cried out in frustration and exhaustion, but I could only watch helplessly. Frank threw himself at Nullah with a groan of effort that even I on the boat could hear, but again Nullah's bare wet skin slipped from his grip. Again he was dragged away. Time after time Frank went to grab him, and every time Nullah, despite his best efforts, slipped right out from his fingers; and I could only watch and pray as they became more and more exhausted, their movements becoming slow and sporadic.
When Frank finally caught Nullah in the swell, and clung to him without slipping away, I barely registered. For a few moments I had resigned myself. I thought without doubt that before my eyes two deaths were about to occur. I was picturing the horrors of drowning. And in the next moment I was dragging away at the rope, watching the frail figures draw closer and closer. Above us, little weak lights appeared on the deck of the ship, like watching angels. And then I was reaching for them, with white-cold fingers, shocked that they should be close enough to touch. Somehow it had worked, and we were alive. I worked in a daze.
I looked into their grey, smiling faces as I pulled Nullah up by his armpits. He sagged against me- a dead weight- and I put him down on deck, where he lay, motionless but awake, then reached back for Brother Frank.
And the boat moved. Just barely did I grab his wrist, holding more or less by the cuff of his sleeve, and with a savage effort dragged him halfway out of the water before the motion of the waves could carry him away.
The cuff ripped. Suddenly he was back in the water, and I almost in with him. There was a terrific whiplash sound, like a bolt of lightning right across our arms, and then I saw. The rope, which evidently had been rubbing on the rail of the boat since I tied it up, had not withstood the sudden strain of Brother Frank's fall, and had snapped. I watched, as helplessly as ever, as my old friend began to be carried further and further away from us. And now he, like Nullah, barely stayed afloat. Barely swam at all.
Silence.
I could have sworn there was silence, sworn to God, though evidently there wasn't. But as I stood there, shivering in soaking clothes, little beads of water dripping into my eyes, I felt like everything stopped. In that moment I took everything in, and it was a little like what Hell must be- there was endless chaos, as far as the eye could see. Wave crashing upon wave, with no peace anywhere. And our little boat, carrying what seemed then to have been a lone survivor amongst an eon of humanity's dead. And brother Frank, slowly vanishing away, beneath a long dark silhouette topped with helpless twinkling, helpless lights.
But as it happened I wasn't alone. I was snapped from my trance of surrender by the whirr of an engine not ours. Out of the storm another boat appeared- a tiny thing, even more helpless than our own, and manned by two or three suicidal men from the ship. I wondered vaguely how they could be so mad, but I was so happy for them.
A crisp, inaudible shout reached the boat. I glanced left; Nullah was at my elbow, panting and shaking but somehow focused. He looked back at me and our eyes met briefly. The shout reached us again.
"Catch the Rope, catch the rope!"
The boat had pulled up close to us- its size gave it advantage of manoeuvrability. A rope came lashing out of the storm onto the deck- a drenched thing, it hardly looked worthy of such a rescue. Nullah leapt on it even faster than me, but his hands were so numb he couldn't tie it, so I seized it and attached it to the mast. I felt it snap taught- through the torrent I could make out the tiny boat-silhouette, almost hovering on the waves as it bobbed about. The rope crept out to it and was held firm. Where it hung, a foot or so above the water, Brother Frank had somehow grabbed hold.
All I remember from the next minute was shouting, and frenzied joy. In truth, my own shouting was all I could hear. Likelihood is that Nullah was shouting too, though he couldn't even stand; and also the men on that tiny boat, our saviour from the ship, and all the man with the lights on the deck high above us, all in chorus. But I didn't hear any of it.
Then he was within reach again! It was strange, that's the only description; utterly strange to see. I wondered with delight how silly we all must have looked, to any passing sea creature, or the ocean if it had consciousness, or God himself maybe: us three tiny humans, frolicking about in this vast ocean sea, next to which we were as insignificant as three grains of sand from a beach. But I was so delighted. Pulling Brother Frank, once a friend, once a rival, back onto that deck was the greatest achievement of my life.
As soon as he was on board, lying there, prostate on the deck, Nullah appeared at his side with a small knife, which he used to hack away the shred of rope still tied around Brother Frank's chest. As soon as it was released Brother Frank gasped, and coughed up water. Evidently the rope had tightened in the water and began to throttle him. But I didn't care. I knew we had succeeded. Nullah collapsed; I carried him over to the side, where the recess of the ship would shield him from the weather- he was immediately and violently sick overboard. The move seemed to empty him of the ordeal, and he was shaking less as he lay down. I glimpsed the tiny little boat disappearing unsteadily back to its mother ship. As if to say, "all in a day's work…" I suppose I never will see it again. Then I went and helped up Brother Frank, who sat against the mast gasping and sodden, his blasting by the elements clearly visible in his shaking body. But he was almost smiling.
"Frank," said Nullah suddenly. The wind was quite quiet. "Frank… Sorry I made you jump. Made you swim... made you come get me. Sorry I hurt you now…"
He turned his face to me now. I was stunned. "Father John…" He stuttered. He really shouldn't have been talking; he was exhausted. "Father John… sorry I ruin things for you… sorry I ruin 'em big plans."
He watched me earnestly for my response, and for the first time I saw that mysterious power in the depth of his eyes that Frank had so often described. I couldn't say anything. I was un-built. I could have cried. I think I did cry, but at the time I didn't notice- in the storm one's emotions all seem to weld together. I couldn't say anything. But Frank did.
He looked across me with a faint smile. It was as though all the past two months had never happened. "It's okay, Nullah." He said. "We forgive you."
…On the return journey no one said a thing- there was not a word in need of saying. Almost immediately Nullah fell asleep, which was best. He looked the happiest and most serene I had ever seen him. Brother Frank followed shortly after.
When we had docked and disembarked I carried Nullah into his dormitory. He was mostly dry, so I put him straight into bed without waking him. Not a soul stirred; not one of them will ever know anything at all of our adventure of tonight. It was as though it had never happened. In that moment I realised that even a revelation that goes totally unnoticed can be the biggest thing in the entire world, even counting all its tragedies.
…I then returned to Brother Frank. He is faring well, but is still weak. I wonder if the rope around his chest may have done some damage to organs or ribs. I must bear in mind that in similar situations in the future I must remember to attach the rope around the waist.
Once I have completed this entry I will take him to the hospital in Darwin. I know he doesn't want to, but I will insist.
…After all this, there is one thing on my mind that I suppose could be said to trouble me. And that is, after all that, I wonder, could I have done the same? I don't know. Would I have ever even dared? Don't know. But I do know that the strength I found tonight will never leave me.
Lord Jesus Christ, you are the light of the world. In forgiving us, you have done the most magnificent deed of all. If we could only emulate that deed. In your name,
Amen.
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End of Chapter 8And now, it seems, we are approaching the end of this story. How sad it is! Hope everyone enjoyed it. One more chapter to go. Up probably next week.