“I’ll make us a picnic, but do you want toast or cereal before we go?”
“Toast is fine.” She washed her hands in the laundry, and by the time she’d returned, Ed had the toaster on and condiments on the table.
He was so good in the kitchen. She’d never seen her father do anything except eat in the kitchen. She shifted across to him, and he handed her a mug of coffee. “Thanks.” She kissed him, but it wasn’t enough. As if he felt the same way, Ed pulled her against him, and this time the kiss was longer, deeper.
She felt it all the way down to her toes. They broke apart, and she placed a hand over her pounding heart. His unhurried, amiable smile didn’t help slow it.
The toaster popped, making Tess jump. She handed Ed a slice, frantically thinking of a topic to discuss. “Is the gulf where the ship sank?”
“Yeah. The island offshore is surrounded by a reef, and they were blown onto it by a cyclone.”
Tess could imagine the terror. Rough seas, the ship lurching all over the place, feeling completely helpless in the face of Mother Nature. “Do you have any journals from the passengers?”
“I don’t think so, but we can go through the trunks afterwards.”
She beamed. “That would be great.” If she could find references to other people who were in Western Australia at the same time as her great aunt, it might give her a path to search. “Thank you.”
“You’re most welcome.” He kissed her again and for the first time Tess was grateful to Tan, because the situation had led her here to Ed.
***
About half an hour later, Ed drove the hired four-wheel-drive across the bitumen road and down a rough track. “Are we allowed this way?” Tess asked.
Ed grinned. “Yeah, this is all Ridge land. Brandon owns it.”
It was still hard to comprehend one family owned so much. The red dirt was a foreign feature, almost as if she was on another world, but the colour was stunning. They bumped over the rough track for close to half an hour before the crystal clear ocean appeared before them. She squinted at the sun glistening off the water as Ed pulled in near a hitching post.
“It’s lovely.”
“We like it,” Ed agreed. He pushed open the car door and pointed out into the bay. “That’s Retribution Island. The ship crashed on the reef surrounding it during a cyclone and stranded people there. When the storm was over, they salvaged what they could, and swam to shore. Not everyone made it.”
A long island full of small trees and shrubs lay in the middle of the bay, far enough away to make swimming the distance to the shore a challenge. And when the survivors reached the shore, they would discover mangroves on one side and endless white sand which blended into the red soil on the other. How devastated would they have been?
On such a bright, sunny day, it was difficult to imagine ferocious winds and pelting rain.
“There’s a plaque over here, which lists the names of everyone on board.”
Tess perked up, and she strode to the metal disc near the mangroves. It was old and rusted, but the names were clearly visible. “Who erected it?”
“Must have been one of my ancestors. It’s incredible it’s still here after all these years and cyclones, so maybe someone replaced the original at some stage.”
Carefully, she traced the names Lillian and Reginald Stokes. “Are these your ancestors?”
“Yeah.”
She read through the names, one by one, not scanning, but giving them the respect they deserved. Dec was written next to the names of the people who had died, presumably during the cyclone. Her heart jumped at the last name on the list. Da Lim. She traced the name, disbelief coursing through her. “That’s my ancestor’s name.” She turned to Ed. “The pearl diver I told you about.” Could it be the same person? The dates were right, but she’d never heard of her being shipwrecked.
Ed chuckled. “That’s a pretty big coincidence.”
She nodded, still studying the name and running through the information she knew of her. “She worked at Cossack. Is that far from here?”
“It’s up the coast about six hundred kilometres. It’s a ghost town now.”
“So she could have been sailing there to work.”
Ed nodded. “I guess so. But that means the ship probably left from Fremantle. If Da Lim came from Singapore, why would she go to Freo before coming here?”
Tess shook her head. It was something else to investigate, but her nerves hummed in excitement. She would go back through the scanned journals on her laptop when they got back to the house. But this connection brought a whole other layer to the shipwreck. This land would have been so foreign to Da, so dry and barren. How would they have found water?
