Take Cover from Tracy

INTRODUCTION & DISCLAIMER

Save for twists of fates in both their lives, Jessie and Jake should never have been in the Australian city of Darwin for Christmas 1974 and never should have met.

Jessie, an ambitious young officer of the Women's Royal Australian Navy, had planned to spend Christmas in Perth with her family until her selfless good deed sees her give up her seat on the flight for a woman who needs it more. Jake, a young man from country Victoria, had his dream job of working as a stockman on a Northern Territory cattle station turn into a nightmare, and the young man finds himself unemployed for Christmas.

With Jessie on leave from the Navy until the New Year and Jake having lost his job, both are at a loose end and stuck in Darwin for the holidays. And December in Darwin is not especially pleasant – it is the tropical wet season, and every day brings hot and humid weather with monsoonal rain. The weather is made worse this year by a formation of a cyclone in the Arafura Sea. The cyclone – named Tracy by the Bureau of Metrology – looks to be heading out into the ocean and does not seem to pose any threat to Darwin. The locals aren't worried by it. After all, what worse damage could a cyclone do to Darwin than the Japanese bombs that rained down on the Northern Territory capital during World War 2?

Upon meeting at the motel where they are staying, Jessie and Jake find a mutual attraction and maybe Christmas won't be so bad over all? But when Cyclone Tracy changes direction around Melville and Bathurst Islands on Christmas Eve and heads straight for Darwin, Jessie and Jake's holiday romance turns into a struggle for survival as the ferocious storm smashes into the unprepared city with massive seas, driving rain and wind speeds of over 200 kilometers per hour that destroy anything in its path. Will Jessie and Jake survive the terrifying night and live to see the dawn on Christmas morning?

While Cyclone Tracy obviously did happen, the characters in this story are fictional, with any similarity to real persons living or dead coincidental and unintentional. Only characters aged 18 and over engage in any sexual activity. Please enjoy 'Take Cover from Tracy' and rate and comment.

*

"I'm sorry Madam, all places on the flight to Perth this afternoon are fully booked."

Standing in the long queue waiting to check in for the flight, Jessica Cameron – always called Jessie - felt so sorry for the middle-aged lady in the blue dress and sun hat, whose face showed intense distress at the news delivered by the younger woman at the check-in counter.

"How about tomorrow – there must be a place on tomorrow's Christmas Eve flight to Perth," the lady pleaded.

"I'm sorry Madam that flight to Perth is booked out too." The check-in counter lady regarded the woman with a sympathetic look, but there was little she could do. Many Darwin residents travelled to the southern cities to see relatives and friends for Christmas and New Year, and with only one flight between Perth and Darwin every day, all seats were snapped up pretty quickly.

"I can pay for a seat, I have the money," the lady pleaded. She waved a wad of cash around.

"I appreciate that Madam, but the flights are fully booked so close to Christmas," said the check-in clerk. "We might be able to get you on a flight to Adelaide or Melbourne later today and you could try and catch a flight from there to Perth, but we can't guarantee it."

"You don't understand, I have to get to Perth as a matter of urgency," the lady pleaded, Jessie noticing that she appeared close to tears. "My daughter and her husband were both injured in a car accident and they're in hospital, and I need to take care of my three grandchildren over Christmas, they're all aged under five. Please, I really need to be in Perth."

"I'm afraid the only way we can get you onto a flight would be if somebody cancelled at the last minute, or if one of the other passengers was willing to relinquish their seat so you could fly in their place."

The lady looked at the long queue of passengers waiting, a hopeful expression on her face. Jessie could see that the woman's desperation was genuine. The younger woman's natural desire to want to help people came to the fore, and she stepped forward out of her place in the line. "It's okay. You can take my place on the Perth flight."

The older woman looked at the young woman as though she was an angel. Jessie with her tall, slim stature, beautiful long blonde hair and her pretty face with big blue eyes had been described as being angelic in looks in the past, but to the lady desperate to get to Perth it was like Jessie was an angel sent from Heaven to deliver a Christmas miracle. True, Jessie did not have wings or a halo and was wearing a pink tee-shirt, tight blue denim jeans and white sandals rather than a flowing white dress, but in the older woman's eyes Jessie was an angel in every sense.

"Oh thank you, thank you so much," exclaimed the lady, throwing her arms around Jessie, the sheer relief evident in her face. "I appreciate this so much, I can't thank you enough. You don't know how much this means to me, sorry I don't know your name."

"I'm Jessie." The two women shook hands.

"Well Jessie, it is very nice to meet you, you were in the right place at the right time today. I'm Helen by the way." Helen suddenly paused, looking guilty. "What about you? I don't want you to miss out on Christmas with your family or anything on my account ..."

"Please Helen, don't worry about me, I'll be fine staying in Darwin," Jessie assured her. "You need to be in Perth for your daughter and grandchildren. I hope your daughter and son-in-law are okay."

Helen nodded. "Yes, my daughter has whiplash and concussion and my son-in-law a broken sternum. I'm just glad the kids weren't in the car. It was a big shock getting the call this morning, and having to drop everything and try to get down to Perth."

"I can imagine it would have been," said Jessie, going with Helen to the counter, where the ticket was transferred over so Helen could take Jessie's seat on the flight to Western Australia, while Jessie remained back in Darwin. Once more Helen profusely thanked Jessie and handed her the money she had brought down to the airport in the hope of purchasing a last minute plane ticket. Jessie felt reluctant to take it given Helen's urgent family situation, but Helen was insistent and Jessie reasoned that she would be significantly out of pocket for the flight she now wouldn't be on, so accepted it.

Jessie, a small back-pack slung over her shoulder and carrying a larger bag, stepped away from the check-in line and watched other Perth-bound passengers check in and go through to catch their flight. The young woman glanced out of the windows at the front entrance of the airport where the taxis pulled in. It was a typical Darwin summer's day this Monday. The hot sunny morning was giving way to a wet afternoon of heavy rain and thunderstorms, the humidity increasing with each passing minute.

The young woman felt good about herself having helped Helen get onto the flight and to Perth where she urgently needed to be, but other emotions were now filling her mind, none of them positive. With her Christmas plans over, she now had the uncertainty of what to do next. Jessie adjusted her backpack and carried her bag outside into the hot and humid day, thinking about her next move.

Jessie's stunning good looks and fine figure attracted the attention of men wherever she went, and as she ambled towards the taxi rank a driver soon noticed her and quickly drove his cab forward to collect her and prevent any other drivers getting in before him. The middle-aged taxi driver with a huge moustache, his chubby frame clad in a shirt soaked by sweat in the hot Northern Territory and a pair of shorts too tight for his portly physique, grinned and licked his lips, coveting not only the money from the fare but having such a pretty blonde girl as a passenger.

Getting closer, the driver drooled at the sight of Jessie's slim body. That she was young enough to be his daughter did not cross his mind at all. He could see how her ample breasts filled out the front of her pink tee-shirt and how her tight blue jeans accentuated her long shapely legs and her firm bum. The young girl's jeans were pretty tight around the crotch, and the taxi-driver felt more saliva filling his mouth as he thought about how Jessie's tight jeans would push her knickers right up into her vagina. He wished he could see the pretty blonde's knickers and her vagina for himself, but this of course was unrealistic.

The driver leaped from his taxi, put Jessie's bags in the boot and climbed into the driver's seat, Jessie in the front passenger seat. The driver again licked his lips as he lit up a cigarette. Jessie's tee-shirt had fallen away slightly on her right shoulder and was showing her bra strap. With such long legs, Jessie's right knee was pretty close to the gear stick, and the middle-aged man hoped he had a drive ahead of him that involved many, many gear changes.

"Where to Miss?" the driver asked.

"You tell me," Jessie muttered sarcastically.

The warm feeling of having done a good deed was wearing off fast, and now Jessie was increasingly anxious about what she was going to do next. Jessie's residence in Darwin was not an ordinary house where she could return and contemplate her lost Christmas holiday, but a Naval Base where she was Third Officer Jessica Cameron as part of the Women's Royal Australian Naval Service, often referred to as its acronym of the 'WRANS'.

Returning to the Naval Base while on leave and her position covered for the week would be odd, awkward and really without precedent. Jessie had been posted to the Darwin Naval Base for close to a year, and not one member of personnel had ever taken leave then remained at the base. Outside of the military, it would have been like if Jessie had a regular 9 to 5 job in an office back in Perth and gone into work every day while on leave, sitting around doing nothing while her colleagues worked. It simply was not done.

"Sorry Miss, where did you want to go?" the driver asked again, snapping Jessie out of her day-dreaming.

"Oh sorry, into the city," said Jessie.

"The city coming right up," said the driver, turning on his indicator and beginning the drive back towards Darwin City, some large spots of tropical summer rain falling on the windscreen. The precipitation wasn't heavy – not yet anyway – so Jessie rolled down her window to try and dissipate the smell of cigarette smoke, which she as a non-smoker could not stand.

"Where to in the city, Miss?" the driver asked.

Jessie thought for a few moments about where she could get accommodation. She remembered on the taxi trip out passing a motel just to the north of the main city which was surrounded by tall palm trees and had a smiling cartoon crocodile sign out the front. It also had a vacancy sign.

"Do you know the motel just to the north of the city, the one with all the palm trees and the big crocodile sign out the front? Opposite from the pub."

"Yeah, I know the place, know it well," affirmed the driver.

Jessie was very much aware that the driver's eyes were roaming all over her body and she had never seen anybody change gears so much, especially when the traffic back into Darwin wasn't that bad. Arriving at the motel, the smiling crocodile sign greeting them the driver getting Jessie's bags out of the back and the girl paying him.

"Well, have a nice Christmas, Miss," said the driver.

"Yes, you too," said Jessie, taking her bags and heading to the motel reception, feeling the driver's eyes staring at her bum through her tight blue jeans as she walked along, the man not bothering with any form of discretion as he stood staring at her while smoking another cigarette. It was only when Jessie went into the motel reception and vanished from his sight that the driver got back into his taxi and drove away, hoping his next female passenger was as pretty as this blonde girl.

In the motel reception Jessie was greeted by noisy air-conditioners struggling to cope on such a humid day, the stench of cigarette smoke and the sound of a television blaring. A plastic Christmas tree decorated the entrance, other Christmas decorations hanging from the ceiling. A blue lava lamp sat on the reception desk. Behind the desk were three men. The first was a bald man who looked to be aged approximately in his mid-50s, skinny in stature wearing a white string vest and brown football shorts, thongs on his feet. He was reading the horse racing pages of a newspaper while smoking a cigarette, a bottle of beer and a glass on the table next to him.

The two younger men, wearing tee-shirts and shorts, were glued to the black and white television set, absorbed in some 1960s American show set in the Wild West the sound of gunfire heard repeatedly. Like the older man, they were drinking beer and smoking cigarettes. One of the boys, who had untidy long dark brown hair, looked old enough to be doing this, as he appeared to be aged about 19. But the younger boy, who had shorter light brown hair, looked no older than 15 or 16, way too young to be smoking cigarettes and drinking alcohol. If the bald man reading the newspaper was his father and the older youth his brother, it was pretty irresponsible on their part.

None of the three men acknowledged Jessie's presence as she walked up to reception, the older man completely absorbed in the race results, and the two young men glued to the television set.

"Hello," she said, struggling to make herself heard over the noise of the television set and the air conditioners.

No response from the three men, so Jessie rang the bell. The older man looked up from his newspaper, reluctantly. "I'll get my wife," he said, before turning and calling out, "Beryl, there's a girl at reception!"

"And you can't serve her yourself, Harry?" came a woman's voice, her tone shrill, her Australian accent so broad it sounded like an exaggeration of a stereotypical Australian dialect by an overseas actress.

Jessie looked at Beryl as she came into sight. Like her husband Harry, Beryl looked to be aged in her 50s, overweight and wearing a green dress that did little to flatter her large frame. Her hair was bright red, untidy and poorly maintained, and on her face she wore way too much make-up. Also like her husband and presumably her sons, she was smoking a cigarette.

"Yes Miss, can I help you?" Beryl asked as she reached the reception desk, blowing cigarette smoke in Jessie's face as she did so.

Jessie was unimpressed with the service she had received so far, but needed a place to stay so she said, "I'd like a room please."

"A room, we have plenty of those," said Beryl, taking out a form and a pen and handing it to Jessie. "If you could just fill out this form please ..." A loud gunfight erupted on the television, clearly irritating Beryl who turned around and screeched at the two youths, "Abbott and Dwayne, will you turn that crap down? I can hardly hear myself bloody think!"

The older of the two young men sighed, got up and turned down the noise of the television. "There, satisfied Mum?" he asked, his tone to his mother a smart-arse, challenging one.

"Go and find somebody else to give the shits to today Abbott, I don't have the bloody time," Beryl yelled back at her older son, as he sat down next to his younger brother and took a swig of beer.

"This show is in color in America, why can't we watch it in color?" the younger boy Dwayne complained as he took a drag on his cigarette.

That her son aged in his mid-teens was openly smoking did not seem to bother Beryl, but his question about the television did.

"Dwayne, you know we don't have color television in Australia yet!" said Beryl. "Not until next year, and even then you won't be watching television in color because those sets cost too much bloody money. I don't know how you would have coped years ago. When I was your age your father and I didn't have television only radio, isn't that right Harry?"

"Yeah," Harry agreed, still too absorbed in his newspaper to be interested in what his wife was saying.

"It's not often we have guests stay on their own over Christmas," observed Beryl as Jessie completed the form. "Most of the time it's families visiting for the holidays and they don't have enough room to stay with their relatives."

Jessie handed Beryl the completed form and the older woman looked at it, puzzled by Jessie's address being the local Darwin Naval Base. "Are you in the Navy?"

Jessie nodded. "Yes, that's right."

Beryl looked confused. The girl lived in Darwin, but was having her Christmas holiday in Darwin? "So, you live at the Navy Base, and you're having your Christmas holiday at a motel in Darwin?"

Jessie could see how anyone would think this odd, so explained. "I was going to fly down to Perth to see my family for Christmas, but something happened at the last minute and I didn't take the flight. So I'm just going to spend my Christmas leave here, before I go back to work at the base next week."

"Well, Perth's loss is our gain," said Beryl. "My sister was a WRAN during the war, you know. I worked at the telephone exchange back then, so I couldn't enlist. Harry and his brother were in the Navy during the war, isn't that right Harry?"

"Yeah," Harry agreed without looking up.

Abbott's ears visibly pricked up at overhearing the conversation. He had been so absorbed in the television that he only now realized how attractive Jessie was. "The Women's Navy?" he asked, getting up from the couch and looking Jessie up and down.

"Yes, that's right," said Jessie.

"So, do you get to sail on really big ships?" Abbott asked.

It was Beryl who answered Abbott's question. "Of course she doesn't Abbott. She's in the women's Navy, only men from the proper Navy get to go out on ships. But the Navy need women for other things, you know typing, answering phone calls, cooking, making tea, cleaning and clerical work. Basic stuff that the men are too busy defending Australia to do."

Harry spoke up for one of the few times without being prompted. "And quite right too. A Navy ship is no place for a girl. The role of all women in the armed services is at the base out of harm's way. Imagine if there was an emergency at sea and there was a girl on the ship. All the men would be too worried about saving her to react properly." Having expressed his opinions, Harry's attention went back to his newspaper.

Jessie was good at keeping a neutral expression when required, and she managed it now despite being thoroughly offended. Jessie had a Bachelor of Science degree, was a fully trained and commissioned officer and her role at the base was a demanding and responsible one as a technician working on the base's increasingly complicated radar and communications systems. Her job most certainly was not making tea and coffee, typing and answering telephones. And there were women in the WRANS who were doctors, lawyers and accountants. There were none at the base in Darwin in those roles, but Jessie knew of women at other naval bases who performed these jobs.

Yet in a way, Beryl and Harry were right in what they were saying. Jessie was only permitted to set foot on a Navy ship when it was docked at the Stokes Hill Wharf. Otherwise, Navy ships were off limits to her and the other WRANS based in Darwin. The only way Jessie could get on board a Navy ship at sea was if she jumped into the ocean, swam far out and needed to be rescued. But such a foolish plan would be unlikely to result in rescue, more likely death at the hands of one of the many saltwater crocodiles and sharks that called the ocean off Darwin their home. Then there were the box jellyfish, so if Jessie didn't end up as lunch for a crocodile or a shark, she could finish her days stung to death by one of these creatures. And leaving aside Darwin's disagreeable marine life and dangerous concentrations of coral and mangroves, the waters off the Northern Territory were treacherous with strong currents, so even a strong swimmer like Jessie would soon be in trouble in deep water, with drowning occurring sooner rather than later.