Last Leaves from Dunk Island — E.J. Banfield / Edmund James Banfield

Early in the year 1918 two great storms visited the coast of NorthQueensland. One centred off the port of Mackay, four hundred miles to thesouth of Dunk Island, on 21st January, and the other about twenty-fivemiles to the north, on 10th March.Forty-eight hours prior to the Mackay storm premonitory effects wereobserved here, succeeding a memorable tidal jumble. During a breathlesscalm a mysterious northerly swell set in. To ears accustomed to thesilence and the musical whisperings of a sheltered bay, the roar andburst of the breakers of a wind-forgotten sea suggested a confused mentalpicture--a blending of black and grey without form.Heaving, as with deep-drawn breaths, out from the beach the sea seemed tobe both restless and angry, as glistening rollers heaved themselves on tothe strand, to be shattered into spray. They rifled the Barrier Reef,threw on the sand lumps of coral to which brown seaweed hung, like thescalps of mermaids, and swept them to and fro with savage persistency.They brought driftwood from afar, and claimed all sorts of sun-driedrelics from previous depositary moods.After a time the sea became silent again, with a sparkling, waveringripple, while the noise of its assault on the mainland beach had the toneof distant, unceasing thunder.Ten days before the second storm, while the sky was cloudless and the airserene, a change in the quality of the heat was felt. During the firstthree months of the year--the period of heavy rainfall--the temperature isgenerally humid., Suddenly it became dry and burning, with a tinglingintensity, as rare as uncomfortable. For the time the moist vapours of amild steam-bath were dispersed by scorching breath as from a furnace, tothe discomfort of animal life and the injury of vegetation.Early on the morning of Sunday, 10th March, the sky became overcast. Afresh southerly breeze had sprung up during the night. A short, confusedsea tumbled in the channel, and the usually placid bay mimicked itssport. With fearsome steadiness of purpose, the wind developed as itveered to the east. At 5 p.m. it was travelling at furious speed,twisting branches from trees and thickening the now gloomy skies withleaves. Consistently with the strength of the wind the barometer felluntil between 9 and 10 p.m., when, with a conglomeration of terrifyingsounds varying from falsetto shrieks to thunderous roars, the centre ofthe cyclone seemed to bore down on the very vitals of the island.The devastating assault lasted about half an hour; it was followed by alull, succeeded by another attack of violence from the north andnorth-west; then, as orderly as the storm had developed so it subsided.With the barometer at 29.90 at 9 a.m., who would have prognosticated adangerous cyclone within twelve hours? Mark the regularity of thederisive finger that, having failed to herald the storm, acted as aservile registrar of its various phases at the moment of occurrence:--