AustLit

'In the dark before dawn on 5 March 1899, half way up the eastern edge of Cape York Peninsula, five men camping on a sand ridge about forty feet above sea level and half a mile behind the beach found themselves waist deep in the ocean. Since midnight, the four Aboriginal troopers and a white officer of the Native Police had been huddled under a blanket as Australia's deadliest cyclone, and one of the world's fiercest, blew away their tents and killed or scattered their horses. Just after 5 am, as the eye passed north over Cape Melville and wrecked the pearling fleet anchored there, the ocean swept inland over the ridge, spoiling the officer's watch.' (Introduction)