How To Catch Crabs

by Carlton, Demelza

  "Giorgio, that's...terrible. Sent to the other end of the Earth on a trumped-up charge, never able to return home or see your family again..." I couldn't imagine it. No matter how much my brothers and sisters irritated me, I'd never want to be banished to a life without them.

  "Oh, I see my family. My brother Salvatore is here, with his lovely wife and children. Four years in Australia and I'm richer than I or my father ever was back home in Sicily. My brother, too."

  I licked my lips, tasting sea salt. "Do you ever wish you hadn't known that... those two girls? I mean, none of this would have happened if you hadn't..."

  Giorgio laughed softly. "I could never resist a lovely lady. So many kisses, so many sweet caresses...and when they offered more? I couldn't refuse. And no, if I could have my time over again, I'd still do the same. Anna was so soft and sweet, and Rosa..." He cleared his throat. "I'm sorry. I realise they both used me for their own ends, but it's hard to be angry at those girls."

  "Would you have been happy with them? I mean, one of them?" I ducked my head to hide my blush.

  He spread his arms wide. "Who knows? Perhaps. Then, I could have made a happy life with either of them. Now that I have seen much more of the world, I could never go back, even if I wasn't a wanted man. Like my brother, I am Australian now. Just like you. I'm even growing used to my Australian name, George. Like the king." He laughed. "The king of this country, not just some rusted boiler on a rock."

  Relief blossomed in my chest at his admission. Australian, just like me. In the back of my mind churned the knowledge that he found women irresistible, and refused them nothing. He was a rake, but not a rogue. And an honest one, at least. Heavens, who'd ever heard of an honest rake? Perhaps he might be good for gardening, after all.

  Laughter bubbled up in my throat and I let it out before I burst. I felt Giorgio – no, George chuckling beside me as he tucked my arm closer to his side. I was stunned to feel sand and coral shingle crunching under my shoes – we'd reached land without realising it.

  "Laugh all you like about my tiny kingdom, Lucy, but it's your kingdom, too – you stood beside me as its queen, if only for a moment. And look what that kingdom includes." He pulled me to the edge of the cliff and pointed at a deep blue hole in the reef. "A fishing spot perfect for catching your heart's desire."

  "And you know my heart's desire?"

  He grinned. "Of course. You told me this morning and I gave you my promise. One evening, when the tide is low and the water is calm, I'll show you how to catch crabs."

  Twenty

  I spent the afternoon with my watercolours, attempting to capture the colour of the water as the island curled around it. I showed George how to use my camera and he amused himself by taking some pictures of me and the myriad birds, before dropping my Brownie back onto the sand beside me.

  "I have to craft the perfect trap if we want to catch something bigger than the pitiful creatures I caught last night. Tonight, I'll show you," he promised and left me to my painting.

  Hours later, I packed away my paints as the light turned golden and the sun sank into the ocean that was no longer shades of blue and green. Certain my help would be needed for dinner preparation, I headed back to the shed to put my art things away and offer assistance.

  I found no one needed me at all. The aroma of baking fish filled the campsite and Maria grinned at me over the flames as she nudged a pot closer to the middle of the coals. "So your day's fishing was good?" I ventured.

  "This is the Abrolhos. The fishing here is never anything but good," she replied. "And what did you do today?"

  "Lucy here was one of the first to walk all the way along the reef to the Windsor, where she climbed to the top of the ship's boiler and proclaimed herself queen of all she surveyed," George said cheerfully as he settled onto a crate as if it were a throne. After what he'd said this morning, I wondered if he thought the same thing about his seat. "And then she ordered me, her loyal subject, to take her crabbing one evening. So tonight, I must make a crab net fit for a queen."

  In the ruddy firelight, I hope neither of them saw me blush at such a blatant lie.

  "I thought you were here for pearls and not crabs," Maria replied. "At least, that's what you told Tony and his cousins."

  "There's no hurry. The oysters will keep for another day," George said.

  I looked from one to the other and wondered what I'd missed. "Pearls? You mean like Mrs D'Angelo's beautiful necklace?"

  Maria excused herself and hurried away.

  "They're often used for necklaces, yes," Giorgio replied, his eyes following the other woman until she vanished into the darkness. "But first, they must be pried out of oysters clinging to rocks in the ocean and sometimes even the seabed itself."

  I knew nothing of pearls, aside from the jewellery I'd seen. I leaned forward eagerly to hear more. "But how do you get them? Do you dive for them, or just pry them off the cliffs? Are there oysters here? And real pearls?"

  He slid onto the sand in front of his crate and leaned against the wood instead. "I believe there are some places where pearl oysters can still be collected in the shallows, but not up around Broome or Cossack any more. Not even Shark Bay."

  "Is that because of the sharks?" I blurted out, thinking of the giant hammerhead who'd nearly had me for lunch.

  George shook his head. "We're proving more dangerous than the sharks up there. No, with all the pearl divers in the north, they've stripped the shallows of anything even remotely resembling an oyster shell. Now, the only ones left are in deeper water and we need divers for that. Before I arrived, there were all sorts of divers who could hold their breath for an uncommonly long time. Not a minute or so like a normal person, but fifteen or twenty minutes at a time. They could dive deep into the water to collect shells and bring them up to the surface, then dive down for more. Now, it's mostly men in big, metal diving suits with air pumped into them constantly from the boat on the surface. Hand pumps, too, and they're damn hard work, but if you stop pumping, your diver could die with no air, or even the air he breathes out. That air has no life in it and it can kill as surely as no air at all."

  "So were you a diver? Did you see anything amazing while you were under the water? Mermaids, maybe?" I pressed eagerly.

  He laughed. "I've been down once or twice, but I usually manage the boat on the surface. Plenty of the men tell tales of mermaids, but I think they're just addled from too much stale air and swimming. I know I've never seen one. I think they're just a myth. The other things I've seen, though...crabs with claws the size of a man's hand. Sharks as big as that one today. Whales so huge they're like something out of a bible story. Large enough to swallow a man, certainly. Turtles big enough for a full-grown man to ride on their back. And crocodiles that eat sharks."

  I sighed. "It sounds like another world. Something out of a story book for children, filled with mythical monsters no one would truly believe."

  "If you like, I'll take you there one day," he offered. "Then you can see it all for yourself and capture pictures on that camera of yours so everyone will believe you. They had to build the jetty forty feet high because that's how big the high tides can be. In the morning, you can walk in the mud beneath them, though you have to watch out for the crabs, and by the end of the day, the water's lapping at the bottom of the boards, forty feet up. That's where the crocodile ate the shark. It crept under the jetty when the tide was out and when the tide came in, it brought sharks for dinner."

  Take me there? My brother would have an apoplectic fit if he heard such an idea; let alone what Mum and Dad would say. Yet, for a moment, I let my heart soar at the thought that he might. "And what about the pearls? Are they white when you pull them from the ocean, or do they need to be cut and polished like other gemstones?" I laughed, moving closer to him to make room for the others, who'd evidently smelled the appetising aroma of dinner. "I can't imagine the oysters would do all the work for you."

  "Not always, but sometimes they do," he said. "There are sto
ries about a pearl, or a whole bunch of pearls, that were found formed into a perfect cross inside an oyster. It was sent to London, but it was found in the oyster beds up north. No, you have to pry the oyster open with a knife, and the pearl's made of the same shiny stuff as the shell. Nacre, it's called. The stuff that makes your mother-of-pearl buttons." He gestured at the row of buttons holding my dress closed. "Some are tiny – seed pearls, I guess you'd call them. But some are so large they're half an inch across. I thought they were always white, too, but I've seen them in white and cream and some even look gold."

  "Pearls? Just like oyster shell, pearls come in every colour of the rainbow," Maria remarked, sitting on my other side with a plate of fragrant fish and baked potato.

  "What would you know about pearls and pearling? There aren't any European women in towns like Cossack and Broome." Without waiting for an answer, George stood and headed to the makeshift table that bore our dinner.

  "More than he does," Maria said softly.

  I waited for her to explain.

  "Tony said he talked of nothing but pearls and oysters, trying to get Tony's dad to help him start up a pearling venture here, but the Basiles aren't stupid. They'd never heard of pearl oysters living this far south. George has to produce proof that pearling could be an industry out here before he'll get any help from the Fremantle fishing community, or even the Geraldton one." Maria laughed as she carefully stabbed a flake of fish and forked it into her mouth. She swallowed, then continued, "This afternoon, I saw him scouring all the rocks on the southern half of the island, searching for oysters like the ones he knows. He found plenty of oysters but not the big ones you find in the north. The silly man doesn't realise that there are many kinds of oysters, just as there are many kinds of pearls. And some are rarer and more precious than diamonds."

  "I don't understand," I said slowly. "He's been pearling for four years. Surely that makes him an expert."

  "Maybe by the standards of pearlers in the north, yes. From what I've heard, the industry up there is failing because there aren't enough oysters or pearls any more." Maria pulled something out of her pocket and held it out. "Here."

  She dropped it into my outstretched palm and I felt cool, round hardness that threatened to roll out of my hand. I glanced down. The globe was as big as the giant pearls George had described – close to half an inch across. Perhaps it was some trick of the firelight, but it was the oddest colour. It almost looked...

  "Green. It's pale green, like the water in the shallows where we brought our supplies ashore. That's where I found it, too, in a black-lipped oyster. Your George has ignored thousands of such oysters today in his pursuit of pearls." She shrugged and filled her mouth with fish.

  "Why didn't you say something to him?" I asked. "Surely if pearling is a viable business here, then both he and the Basiles could make a fortune from the oysters everyone else has ignored. And if the colours are so unusual...aren't they more valuable than the more common white ones?" Reluctantly, I tried to return the remarkable pearl.

  Maria shook her head and closed my fingers around it. "You keep it. I found plenty today, but he wouldn't believe me. As he said, there are no European women in his waters." I thought I saw a smile cross her features, but it vanished before I could be certain.

  No. Not European ones. Australian ones. I hugged this information to myself, though, letting it warm me as much as the fire did while I listened to campfire stories and watched George construct his perfect crab net.

  Twenty-One

  Three nights later, as I forced down what I hoped was my last meal of fish, George dropped his voice so low only I could hear and said, "Are you ready for a little excitement tonight?"

  I nodded slowly. "That depends on what kind." I'd had enough excitement for a week after this morning. Mr Williams had antagonised the sea lions so much that one had chased him across the island before biting him on the backside. Before dinner, he'd still been lying on his bunk, moaning about the pain.

  George tipped up an oyster shell and sucked out the contents. I felt queasy. "The conditions are perfect and it's low tide just before midnight. Even the moon is smiling on us tonight." He nodded to the east, where the huge, yellowish globe had risen above the horizon.

  "Perfect for what?"

  He grinned, tossing the empty oyster shell into the communal pile where he and the other men had thrown their rubbish after eating the slimy things. "Fishing with my new net."

  My stomach fluttered as if I'd swallowed butterflies and not fish. Tonight, George would finally keep his promise and I couldn't seem to quell my excitement. I wasn't sure I wanted to, either.

  As the moon paled from yellow to white and crept inexorably higher, people wandered away from the fire in ones and twos. Some, like the Hertzes, off to bed for an early night. Others, like Maria, to take advantage of the perfect fishing conditions that George had remarked on. Just as long as I didn't have to eat it – and the Basiles returned tomorrow with fresh food supplies, like they were supposed to.

  That left George, Dominic, two other men and myself grouped around the campfire. Dominic didn't seem in any hurry to go to bed or do anything else – much like he had for the last four days, he watched George and I like a hungry sea eagle. Even when we went for walks around the island in daylight, my brother was sure to appear and interrupt our tete-a-tete. I wish he'd just leave us alone.

  Mr Sargent seemed to have a head full of scary stories and tonight he outdid himself with a shipwreck tale he swore had happened at these very islands – perhaps even in this very spot.

  Despite my irritation with Dominic, I was fascinated.

  "These islands are haunted, you know," Mr Sargent began, gazing around the intimate circle of his rapt audience. "So many ships have sunk here, it's a wonder the beaches aren't made of bones. In fact, maybe they are, and the coral shingle isn't finger coral but dead men's fingers, bleached and battered by the sea until they're thrown up on shore in their final resting place." A pause. "But the bloodiest shipwreck of all was a Dutch one, nigh on three hundred years ago. A tale of murder and mutiny and treasure which some say is still here, waiting under the waves for the right person to discover it."

  Even George looked interested.

  "On a night much like this one, this Dutch merchant ship – the Batavia, it was called, just like the city that was its destination. It was her maiden voyage and she was the best ship the Dutch East India Company had ever built. Just like the Titanic. And like the Titanic, she was doomed." He grinned. "The captain, a Belgian by the name of Francis, was a very hard man. And some of the officers staged a mutiny to replace him with the first mate, a man named Adrian. They had no last names then, these Dutchies. They were called the son of whoever their father was. Anyway, these men were having a secret meeting about the mutiny when the lookout called that he saw moonlight on the water ahead. The conspirators shouted back that moonlight on the water never hurt anybody, they all laughed, and went back to their plotting.

  "A few minutes later, the ship stopped with an almighty crash, grinding her bottom along a reef that had been hiding under the water. The only sign it was there was the moonlight shining on the waves that the lookout had seen, but the wicked crew had ignored.

  "The captain woke up and ordered the crew to throw everything overboard. Cannons, shot, treasure, cargo...anything that would lighten the ship and let her float free. But she was stuck fast on that reef and there she stayed.

  "On the captain's orders, they abandoned ship, the crew and the passengers, too, all taking to the ship's boats and rowing out to the tiny, flat islands inside the reef. When everyone was on the islands, the captain and the first mate took a boat and promised to sail it to Batavia, the city, to bring back help. Leaving behind more than two hundred men, women and children."

  Dominic threw another log on the fire. "Get on with it, man. I want to get to the bird rookeries around the marshes at the northern end of the island before midnight and at this rate, you'll be telling tall
tales 'til dawn."

  "There was this one woman, more beautiful than the rest, who was particularly friendly with the captain, if you know what I mean, and Jeronimus, the man the captain left in charge on the islands, had always desired her. Now, the captain didn't know that Jeronimus had arranged the mutiny because he wanted the lady. With the captain gone, he decided to take her for his own.

  "Jeronimus ordered all the food and water to be kept in one place, under guard at all times, so it would be safe. Now, he had no intention of sharing those supplies. He was keeping them for himself, his picked men and their harem of women. And queen among them was to be the lovely Lucretia, whether she wanted to or no..."

  "What did you say?" I interrupted.

  "Lucretia. The beautiful lady he desired was called Lucretia. And when fighting broke out between his men and those who wanted a fair share of the food and water, he seized Lucretia and dragged her to his tent. Then she was completely at his mercy, and he –"

  "Stop. This isn't fit for my sister's ears. You'll give her nightmares, man," Dominic said, jumping to his feet. "Get your camera or I'll leave without you." Dominic turned to me. "Good night, Lucy. Go to bed and get some sleep. The Stella could be back tomorrow and Captain Basile will want us to be ready."

  George rose. "I might take a walk along the beach before I turn in the for the night. Good night, Lucy, and good luck, gentlemen." He gave me a pointed look and headed into the scrub.

  Hiding my smile, I wished the men good night and made my way to the shed where the others slept.

  Twenty-Two

  In the moonlight filtering through the open shed door, I quickly switched to the sturdy shoes I'd worn when we walked out to the Windsor earlier in the week. Then I sneaked back out in search of George.

  I thought I'd grown used to the moaning wind in our time at the islands, but tonight it sounded like there were words in the eerie sound. I even thought I heard my name more than once. Maybe George was calling me softly, I reasoned, stepping out onto the empty beach.