Meggie never forgot the sound of foghorns, her first introduction to Australia.

  Paddy carried Fee off the Wahine in his arms, Frank following with the baby, Meggie with a case, each of the boys stumbling wearily under some kind of burden. They had come into Pyrmont, a meaningless name, on a foggy winter morning at the end of August, 1921. An enormous line of taxis waited outside the iron shed on the wharf; Meggie gaped round-eyed, for she had never seen so many cars in one place at one time. Somehow Paddy packed them all into a single cab, its driver volunteering to take them to the People's Palace. "That's the place for youse, mate," he told Paddy. "It's a hotel for the workingman run by the Sallies."

  The streets were thronged with cars seeming to rush in all directions; there were very few horses. They stared raptly out of the taxi windows at the tall brick buildings, the narrow winding streets, the rapidity with which crowds of people seemed to merge and dissolve in some strange urban ritual. Wellington had awed them, but Sydney made Wellington look like a small country town.

  While Fee rested in one of the myriad rooms of the warren the Salvation Army fondly called the People's Palace, Paddy went off to Central Railway Station to see when they could get a train for Gillanbone. Quite recovered, the boys clamored to go with him, for they had been told it was not very far, and that the way was  all shops, including one which sold squill candy. Envying their youth, Paddy yielded, for he wasn't sure how strong his own legs were after three days of seasickness. Frank and Meggie stayed with Fee and the baby, longing to go, too, but more concerned that their mother be better. Indeed, she seemed to gain strength rapidly once off the ship, and had drunk a bowl of soup and nibbled a slice of toast brought to her by one of the workingman's bonneted angels.

  "If we don't go tonight, Fee, it's a week until the next through train," Paddy said when he returned. "Do you think you could manage the journey tonight?"

  Fee sat up, shivering. "I can manage."

  "I think we ought to wait," Frank said hardily. "I don't think Mum's well enough to travel."

  "What you don't seem to understand, Frank, is that if we miss tonight's train we have to wait a whole week, and I just don't have the price of a week's stay in Sydney in my pocket. This is a big country, and where we're going isn't served by a daily train. We could get as far as Dubbo on any one of three trains tomorrow, but then we'd have to wait for a local connection,