by Roxane Dhand
By sun-up the next day, the Hornet was in their midst. The schooner was a superb three-mast vessel, fore and aft rigged, and had been built in the shipyard at Port Fremantle. Coop pondered the expense. Captain Sinclair ran a fleet of just three luggers – as far as he could see. Living on board a vessel you could walk about on, and that boasted sixteen crew in addition to the skipper and his mate – that meant seriously big money. He must have hit the jackpot somewhere along the line.
Emerging from his confined quarters, Coop began to sweat. He knew his shell tally was a fraction of what the Japanese divers were hauling to the surface and he sensed the captain was banking on his poor yield.
He shielded his eyes from the searing light. He could see loaded dinghies casting off from the luggers, pyramids of shell ready to dump aboard the supply schooner, and compared them to his own pitiful pile. Maybe he could make his pile look a bit more impressive. He gave it an experimental poke with his foot. He still believed it was just a matter of getting his eye in, but spotting the shell on the seabed was proving to be far harder than he could have imagined. He’d kidded himself that it would be easy, and knew that Captain Sinclair was laughing behind his back. But Coop was dogged and would not give his boozed-up employer the satisfaction. He was convinced that perseverance and more practice would level the scores. He knew he could do better.
The Sharky’s crew loaded the shell onto the dingy, then Coop and JB rowed it over to the Hornet. It was far too early for Slippery Sid, the Filipino shell-opener, to be up and about. He generally did not appear on deck till late afternoon. He was still tucked up in his hammock, taking care of a hangover and snoring like an industrial machine.
For Coop, evening was the most exciting time on the pearling lugger. During the day, if it had been a good one, basket upon basket of shell was sent up to the deck, awaiting the skill of their shell-opener. Sid, it seemed to Coop, lived a mind-numbing existence, his work taking him less than an hour and a half a day; a little more if he stopped for a cup of coffee or a puff of opium. Captain Sinclair called him ‘the Asian limpet’, because he was clinging to a desperate job that no-one else wanted to do. The only reason the captain had him on board was to try to arrest the pilfering of his pearls. Coop knew that finding a decent pearl could set a man up for life. It was considered fair game; they would hijack the little creamy globule if they found one. After all, no-one would get hurt. It was theft without a victim. But Coop thought the captain had badly miscalculated with Sid, because he was the worst of them all. There was talk that he had a lucrative sideline in town selling the pearls he snitched. The crew despised him.
There were half a dozen other dinghies circling the schooner, waiting for the ladders to be thrown down at the appointed hour. One of the captain’s clerks, dressed in a cream silk jacket and trousers, stood on the deck with his clipboard in hand, supervising the uploading of the boss’s shell.
Coop looked up at him from the dinghy and snatched a worried breath. ‘Is Captain Sinclair on board?’
‘No, Coop. But Mrs Sinclair is in the forward hull with the ledgers.’
Slowly he exhaled, trying not to shout. ‘Mrs Sinclair is on board?’
‘Yes, she’s running the slop chest. Captain Sinclair gets seasick … or at least that’s the excuse he’s giving his crews.’ The clerk shot him a knowing wink. ‘She says she’s opening it in a few minutes. You want to come on board?’
Coop and JB tied up the boat and climbed one of the ladders, joining the crews from other luggers who were already gathered on deck.
The slop chest was eagerly awaited by the men who lived on monotonous rations for weeks at a time. It was also a way for the master pearlers to fleece their crews. Alcohol, food and tobacco were sold at inflated prices, and Coop suspected Captain Sinclair’s aim was to ensure that by the end of the season his crew ended up having already spent most of the money they’d earned. The white men were led downstairs amidships once the indentured crews had been served, and along a corridor by the ship’s Japanese bosun.
The daily competition between divers and the crews was keen, but here, on the schooner, the men were oddly patient as they lined up to make their selections.
Maisie Sinclair was wearing a white blouse, the sleeves rolled up to the elbows. The sun shone through a porthole to stain her blonde hair gold. She sat behind a desk, a pen in her left hand. Everything they chose she recorded in two large ledgers. A fat stack of envelopes – mail for the crews – was tied up with red tape on the pristine blotter. Behind her stretched an Aladdin’s cave of treats. The shelves were groaning with temptation for a homesick sailor. There were cigars, bottles of pills, tea from China and wooden boxes of spices, parcels with labels depicting dragons and bears, chocolate, tobacco, coffee and bottles of spirits. There were cans of fruit and vegetables and lumps of opium resin.
Coop dithered at the front of the queue, wondering what to say to her.
‘Morning, Mrs Sinclair.’ His voice sounded odd and he gave a laugh to cover it.
Maisie looked up and flapped a stray wisp of hair behind her ear. The last time she’d seen him she’d passed out cold on the jarrah wood floor. ‘Mr Cooper. Is something amusing?’
‘Not amusing, no. I wasn’t expecting to see you, that’s all.’
‘So, you find it amusing that I’m here?’
‘No. Just unexpected. I wasn’t laughing at you.’
‘I wasn’t expecting to be here either, Mr Cooper, but working on the luggers was what you chose to do.’ Her voice sounded brittle.
‘True enough, Mrs Sinclair. Although living in a stifling cabin shared with rats, cockroaches and a grumpy Jap is not a laughing matter.’
‘The accommodation is not comfortable?’
‘You can’t imagine, madam.’
A flush of red stained her throat. Her hand flew to her neckline, trying to pinch the edges of the collar together, and she looked around in dismay. ‘Is there anything we have here that could help?’ she asked. ‘I see you are stocking up with supplies. Is the diet not a laughing matter, either?’
Coop had seen her discomfort before, and it intrigued him. He never seemed to catch her at ease unless she had half a bottle of gin on board. ‘I’ve never much cared for rice or fish.’
He placed his purchases on her table: a box of fruitcake, a packet of needles and some thread, a tin of cocoa, five cans of tobacco and a couple of bottles of whisky. He watched her record the items against his name in one ledger and then the other.
‘Did you find everything you wanted?’ she said.
‘I would have relished some fresh fruit or vegetables. Anything not condemned to old age in a tin.’
She sucked on the end of her pen then laughed lightly, as if she’d had a brainwave. ‘Then I must offer you supper tonight! I’ll get the cook to roast something. It’s the least I can do for my fellow countrymen. I’m not sure I can guarantee the fruit or vegetables on this occasion, but please pass the word.’
Coop looked at her, unable to keep a trace of amusement out of his voice. ‘I accept with pleasure on behalf of myself and John Butcher. But I fear our number will be small. The other English divers are anchored up somewhere else. I haven’t seen them for weeks. They weren’t in my billet in town – I believe they were in one of the lay-up camps in Devil’s Creek, but I haven’t seen them since the welcome bash.’
Maisie stared up at him, her eyes dark pools of blue. She flipped her ledgers shut, her hand unsteady. ‘I wonder if I might ask a favour of you, Mr Cooper?’ She tapped the pile of letters. ‘I still have the mailbag for the crews, which I neglected to give out with the slop chest. I know the men long for news from their families. Would it be too much trouble for you both to drop the letters for me?’
‘Consider it payment for our supper, Mrs Sinclair. There may even be a letter for one of us, which would be grand. It’s no trouble at all.’
It was after six, and the sea was settling to a shimmering, oily darkness. Night fell quickly from light
to dark; there was no murky twilight at sea. JB rowed with long, regular strokes as they moved towards the riding light in the schooner’s rigging.
Coop was first up the ladder when they reached the larger vessel’s side. Maisie had put on a clean cotton blouse and skirt and a pair of heeled shoes, which were all wrong for the schooner. She tottered slightly with the movement of the boat, and threw an arm out to steady herself on the ship’s rail.
He wondered if she had already been at the gin.
‘Is it wise of you to put yourself in the company of two rough pirates, Mrs Sinclair?’
Again, he’d said the wrong thing. He pushed at his sleeves and wanted to bite back his words.
Attempting a blasé tone, she said, ‘I am sure the pirates will exercise ample self-restraint, Mr Cooper, and that I shall be in no danger. Mr Butcher will stand by as my protector.’
‘As I will, too, madam,’ he said.
‘I trust that you would do nothing to distress Doroth– the one who has captured your heart,’ Maisie replied, and continued when observing their blank expressions. ‘At home, on shore – in the Bay.’
JB shot a glance at Coop and scratched his ear.
‘All hands on deck, then,’ he said. ‘And prepare to repel boarders!’
They sat in the main cabin in the best clothes they could muster, a ridiculous uniform for the heat and the occasion. Coop had donned a bright yellow neckerchief. JB was buttoned up to the neck and sweating. It was far too hot to be below deck eating roast meat, tinned vegetables and dumplings. Coop tucked a large linen napkin into his collar and Maisie patted her face rather too vigorously with her handkerchief. Saying grace and remembering all those lost at sea, she invited JB to carve.
‘Would you tell me about life on board a lugger? I see the product of your effort in the shell collected on deck. I also see your tiny craft at anchor, which I believe is home to several men for weeks on end. I would like to understand what it is like for you all.’ She turned to Coop. ‘You mentioned earlier that conditions are basic.’
A putrid whiff floated in through the porthole on a faint pulse of wind. Maisie wrinkled her nose and made a poor attempt at disguising her distaste. The silence expanded as JB shook his head over the meat, producing a complicated performance involving a long thin carving knife and sharpening steel, like a samurai warrior at a training camp.
‘It’s not a glamorous existence, Mrs Sinclair. That shocking smell,’ JB waved his carving knife at the porthole, ‘is the oyster drying out. It sits on deck all day, slowly dehydrating, and by nightfall it takes a final gasp. That’s what you can smell.’
Maisie smiled cheerlessly. ‘I am acquainted with the smell of dead oyster, gentlemen, but I cannot pretend indifference to it. My husband brings the reek of his profession home in his clothing.’ She considered for a moment, her pale eyebrows dipping. ‘But he does not sail with his fleet and is a poor judge of weather conditions, it seems. Fortunately for us all, Mr Cooper, it appears you are not.’
JB looked at Coop and grinned. ‘The crews won’t let him out of their sight, Mrs Sinclair. They think he can walk on water. Even the fatalistic Japs are happy.’
‘That’s a bit of an exaggeration, JB,’ Coop said. ‘I was brought up by the sea. I know boats and I was born under the sign of Pisces. It’s fated that I have a natural affinity with water.’
‘I’m also a Pisces and yet I cannot swim,’ she said.
‘Then I should teach you. It’s unthinkable you should be at sea and unable to swim.’ He said it before he had time to think and again wished he could have bitten back his words. ‘I’m sorry. I have overreached myself.’
Maisie stared at the tablecloth and felt the heat in her cheeks. She didn’t care for the sea; she knew too well the fear of its ruthless strength.
The day she’d learned of it, thrashing grey water had crested with white-topped waves, and there had been a picnic on the sand behind a windbreaker. It was new, that windbreaker; a cloth construction of brightly coloured fabric, ribbed with spine-straight rods that were supposed to shield them from the wind. They’d brought it with them, rolled up tight like a sausage, and she had carried it under her arm, feeling proud that she had been given an important job. The canvas wall hadn’t been tall enough to stop the wind, though, and she’d tried to crouch down, bending her spine to duck her head beneath it. Her mother had slapped her hard on the arm and told her she was slouching like a monkey.
There was someone else on the beach with them – a man who wasn’t her father – and she remembered the weight of disappointment tugging her hands to her sides. Despite the wind, it was hot. Her feet had burned inside thick lace-up boots and her knitted cardigan scratched at her skin through her dress. She’d sat on a rug, legs slung wide to make a table of her dress, eating sandwiches and cake.
She smiled to herself.
Victoria sponge: two perfect circles of golden cake sandwiched together with cream and strawberry jam. Her mother had tutted and vowed to have words with the cook because the jam should have been raspberry. The two adults were drinking cook’s special lemonade and leaning in close, whispering. Her mother, for once, had looked happy.
Maisie remembered getting up and shaking the crumbs off her dress. She’d wandered off towards the seashore, her head regularly swinging over her shoulder to see if her mother was watching, but she and the man were sipping their drinks and laughing. That had shocked her – the sound of her mother’s laugh.
The rocks were jumping-distance apart, little pools of seawater trapped between them. She bent down and picked up a shell and listened to the tide rushing round the curvy carapace.
With the shell clutched in her hand, she sat on the sand. Placing the shell carefully beside her, she unlaced her boots and peeled down her stockings. The damp sand was deliciously cool between her toes.
Maisie flexed her feet in an attempt to recall that feeling.
She’d picked up the shell and listened in to the sound of the sea once more. The lull of the lapping waves on the sand seemed to be calling her towards the water’s edge. She looked further out to where the sea roiled, as if great white horses galloped towards the shore. The noise consumed her as she waded into the waves.
Then there’d been heaving, a sore chest, sickness. The man was wringing water out of her sodden cardigan, saying kind words, and mopping at her with the tea towel from the picnic hamper. Her mother had stood by and watched.
Maisie thought now she’d been disappointed her child hadn’t drowned.
‘Mrs Sinclair? Are you quite well?’
‘Are you a swimmer, Mr Butcher?’ she said, ignoring the question.
JB paused, his cutlery clutched like weapons in his palms, the business ends pointing upwards, a lump of meat speared on his knife. Gravy trickled down the shaft onto his hand. He licked the blade and spoke through a mouthful of meat and potatoes.
‘I’m more of a fixer,’ he said, chewing hard. ‘I’m an engineer and a poor sailor. Born and brought up in the north.’ He sucked the sauce off his knuckles. ‘Where was home for you, Mrs Sinclair?’
Coop parked his cutlery together as she had, vertically dissect ing the plate. Her smile, a quick flex of the mouth, didn’t reach her eyes. He saw that home was an uncomfortable topic for her.
‘I grew up in London. My father is a High Court judge.’
‘Do you miss your family?’ JB said.
Mrs Sinclair said nothing – merely nodded her head – which made Coop wonder if JB had overstepped the mark with his question. The roast dinner ground on, punctuated with awkward pauses broken only by the clink of silver on china and the sound of the schooner straining against its sea anchor. Coop could sense she would retreat from them completely unless he broke the three-sided silence.
‘Why not tell Mrs Sinclair what we do each day, JB? That will give her some idea what it’s like on the lugger.’
JB rubbed crumbs from his mouth with the back of his hand. Coop felt a fresh flash of dismay that sh
e would again associate him with his unsophisticated tender, that she would consider him coarse and ill-bred.
JB reached for his coffee and blew noisily into the cup. ‘Work begins at daybreak.’ He stacked three sugar cubes onto a spoon and hovered the bowl below the surface of the hot liquid as he waited for the crystals to dissolve. He withdrew the spoon and slurped up the sugary syrup.
Mrs Sinclair lowered a sugar cube into her own cup with a pair of silver tongs.
‘The cook produces breakfast on his makeshift stove. It’s really a topless oil drum with iron rods across the top to support the cooking pots,’ JB said, oblivious to the scene he was causing. ‘While Coop has his coffee and a smoke, I get his kit together. It’s cold down below, so he wears layers of undergarments and stockings, which reach up to his thighs.’ He slashed a line across his leg to mark the spot. ‘On top of that, he has his heavy rubberised diving dress and lead-soled boots. All the clothes protect him from the cold and the pressure as well.’
Coop nodded. ‘I dress as if for the North Pole. Captain Scott would be proud of me. Sometimes when I come up from the deep water, on my skin you can see every crease from the clothing. That’s from the pressure. Even though it’s freezing you still sweat a lot.’
JB laughed. ‘And Coop is fussy. He washes and dries his underclothes every night.’
Coop burned with embarrassment. He kneaded his forehead with his fingers, thumbs anchored on his temples. Mrs Sinclair’s head remained inclined towards JB. She was nodding, giving him her full attention. Coop stared at her profile and felt within him a longing that almost made him groan.
Mrs Sinclair turned back and for a moment they looked at each other. He thought he read something in her eyes but knew it meant nothing. The divide between them was too great. And she wasn’t his.