AfterDarkness - (EPUB全文下载)

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Broome
1938
‘That’s Broome there, three miles southeast.’
I looked to where the deckhand was pointing. A pink spur of land crested with green rose out of the milky blue water. My pulse quickened in my throat. For days, I had been aching to disembark. Ever since we’d set sail from Singapore and navigated the tropical waters of Java, the air thick with humidity, I’d dreamed about stepping off the undulating deck onto the islands we passed. As we had travelled further south, we left the archipelago and all around us there was nothing but sea, only increasing my yearning to set foot on land. But now that I’d reached my destination, the prospect of alighting in this alien place—what would be my home—sent a wave of panic through me.
The ship turned into the bay, revealing a curve of rich red sand that bled into the azure sea. The strange clash of colours was like nothing I’d ever seen, beautiful and unsettling in equal measures. As we neared the shore, I could make out the township. It looked tiny: a couple of dozen buildings, many as dilapidated as some of the shacks we’d seen in the provincial villages in Java. The jetty snaked half a mile out from the shore, the tops of its wooden stilts exposed to the sun. A two-carriage train sat at the end. I heard the clang of the anchor being lowered when we were still more than a hundred yards from the jetty.
‘Are we stopping here?’ I asked the crewman.
‘Low tide soon. Captain thinks it’s too dangerous to get any closer. Passengers getting off here will be sent over in a lifeboat.’
I bade farewell to the people I’d befriended on the trip—two brothers from Singapore and a gentleman from Ceylon—and joined the eight others disembarking in Broome. We squeezed onto one boat, our luggage stacked next to our feet between the benches. One of the crewmen started the motor and we puttered towards the jetty.
As we navigated the rolling sea, my trepidation grew. What would the hospital be like? Who would my friends be? Soon, we were close enough to see the crowd standing at the end of the jetty. Many were dressed all in white, evidently the colour of choice in the tropics. The Asiatics wore white collarless shirts and darker slacks, while the Britisher men were dressed in ivory linen suits, and the women wore pale dresses that skimmed their ankles. I spied two men among the crowd who were distinctly Asiatic in their colouring and stature yet dressed well enough to blend in with the Britishers. I decided one of them must be Kanemori ............

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