I Googled the Dunbar and was soon immersed in details of the ship and its unhappy fate. While the whole episode didn’t have the dimensions of the Titanic disaster, the ship was luxurious for its time, with some very smart cabins, and it had been custom-built as a fast ship to compete with American vessels in the era of the gold rushes. The crew was said to be first class and the captain, James Green, was a veteran of eight previous voyages to Sydney.
Wakefield’s uncharitable account of Green’s navigational error was more or less accurate. The Dunbar slammed broadside into the cliffs between the Gap and the Macquarie Lighthouse, which wasn’t completely effective in bad weather, and her solid construction of British oak and Indian teak couldn’t save her.
I read through the accounts of the inquiries and the exoneration of Green that attributed the tragedy to the extreme weather, and James Johnson’s testimony that seemed to have, understandably, a shell-shocked quality to it. Survivors carry a burden of guilt no matter how innocent they are, and Johnson was defensive and anxious to withdraw from the limelight. He later distinguished himself by brave actions in connection with another wrecked vessel and, interestingly, accounts of this carried a flavour of rehabilitation, as if the poor bugger had lived something down. I’d been there.
I printed out a few pages and sat back from this pretty superficial research thinking how unfair history could be. I had to admit to being very interested, even intrigued. Wakefield’s claim to be able to track another survivor and another account of events was as compelling as a treasure island map.
I didn’t learn much more about Wakefield from the web. He’d written a few articles in minor journals and a book for a small Californian publisher on Australians in the California gold rush. You could pick it up very cheap on Amazon.
~ * ~
There was no email from Wakefield by late in the afternoon so I did my usual workout at the Redgum Gym in Leichhardt. I’d had a quadruple bypass a few years before and had to take various medications at various times under different conditions that annoyed me and made me feel fragile. I tended to work too hard in the gym to prove I wasn’t.
Then I paid Megan and Ben a visit. Megan was working on her laptop while keeping an eye on Ben, who was watching a DVD of The Gruffalo. I gave him a gingerbread man and he gave me a thumbs-up without taking his eyes off the screen.
‘He particularly likes the scary bits,’ she said. ‘Should I be worried?’
‘I liked Mr Hyde better than Dr Jekyll,’ I said.
‘Look where it got you. But I have to say, Cliff, you’re more like yourself today than you have been lately.’
‘What d’you mean?’
‘You’ve looked bored, now you look almost excited. Something on your plate? Tell me you’re not going undercover for ICAC
I laughed and told her about Wakefield. She remembered the tomb in the cemetery and the wording ‘such remains as could be discovered . . .’ The mass grave had had the same effect on her as me. They’d had to do something similar in Christchurch after the earthquake and even more extensively in Japan after the earthquake and tsunami.
Megan shut down the laptop. ‘Is he fair dinkum?’
‘I don’t know. He’s from Queensland, although you wouldn’t know it from his accent. He’s got these degrees from little US colleges and a few publications in not very impressive places. I don’t think you’d want Ben to go to the Independent University. It’s mostly online stuff and the thrust is for personal achievement and organisational management. Apparently there’s a lot to learn about the dynamics between those two.’
‘I bet. Still, it’s got you in and it’ll pay.’
‘It might. How’s Hank?’
Hank Bachelor was Megan’s partner and Ben’s father. He’d given his genes to the boy. Hank stood 190 centimetres and when they measured Ben at two years of age and doubled the figure, a formula which is supposed to give you the fully grown height of a child, he clocked in at 195. Hank had worked for me in the past and now he was on his own, specialising in surveillance equipment.
‘He’s fine,’ Megan said. ‘Busy, but he misses the street stuff he used to do with you.’
‘There’s not much of it around these days.’
‘You usually manage to find some. Take care of yourself, Cliff, you’re not…’
‘As young as I look. I know.’
I kissed her and said goodbye to Ben, who gave me a double thumbs-up.
~ * ~
The email was there when I got to my home computer in the morning. I couldn’t open the attachment. An hour later Wakefield rang.