I fear I may have wet myself in terror but, surprisingly, my pants are still dry. My legs shake slightly though, and my hands tremble as I reach down and wrench my dagger from the boar’s eye and wipe the blade clean. A crashing noise comes from behind me. It suddenly occurs to me the beast might not be alone.
I spin around, terrified, to see Sam coming along the track towards me. He stares in disbelief. ‘Wow, look at the size of that monster. How on earth did you do that?’
I am tempted to say I jumped on its back, rode it down and killed it, but nothing comes out. Instead, ‘Er … er … er …’ is all I can mutter.
‘And look at you, you are as white as a ghost,’ he continues. ‘Come on, we’ll get some of the others to help carry the pig. It’ll need more than the two of us.’
‘What about the water?’ I ask a few minutes later when my power of speech returns. ‘Won’t we need that soon?’
‘We can worry about the water later,’ replies Sam. ‘Besides, there is a storm coming, that will keep us in more than enough water for days.’
As he says it, I feel the first few drops land on me, and then the sand ahead is stained as more and more drops hit and splatter.
Luckily, the crew have finished re-roofing most of the bunkhouse. Sam and I rush in, just as the rain completely gushes down, more like a waterfall than a rainstorm. Broome has plenty of monsoon rain, and I’m used to it, but here it seems even heavier.
The crew sit quietly as it is too noisy to talk over the din of the rain lashing the tin above us. Two hours later, we are still sitting on the rusty old bed frames avoiding the streams and drips and the growing puddles, when the rain starts to ease off and, soon after, ceases altogether. The air in the room quickly becomes hot and humid again.
Captain Bowen stands and rubs his hands together. ‘Sam tells me Red has killed a big wild boar. We’ll be eating like fat old King Henry the Eighth from the sound of it. Well done, Red. Now you’d better show us where this animal is.’
As the men get up and leave the hut, they all smile at me. Several pat me on the back or mess my hair.
Back in the kitchen an hour later, I help Sam butcher the boar. I know how it is done having watched Mr Tosser, our neighbour in Broome, do it many times for his butcher’s shop.
‘Find me some rope while I sharpen my knife,’ commands Sam.
It is not difficult finding rope and wire and all sorts of other stuff among the remains of the mining camp rubbish scattered about between the buildings. Our desert island is like a vast rubbish dump.
I hand Sam a length of thick rope I find coiled in the workshop. He slings one end over a rafter at the back of the kitchen, and then he, Briggs, Rowdy and I haul the dead boar up by its hind legs until its head is clear of the ground. It weighs a ton. I tie down the other end of the rope and watch as the boar swings slowly. Sam arranges a sheet of iron beneath the beast so that when he slits the boar’s stomach, the smelly intestines will fall onto it and can be dragged away to be buried. He seems to be a bit of an expert at butchery, and within an hour he has removed the hide and has the boar ready to be roasted at the beach.
Sam Chi digs a big hole in the sand and lines it with stones and hot coals to cook the pig the New Zealand Maori way, with it covered in palm leaves and then sand. For all the rest of the day the smell of roasting pork drifts on the breeze so that by the time Sam serves it up in the evening I am ravenous. We sit on kero drums in a circle on the beach around the firepit and as soon as I carve off a slice of the boar’s rump, I gulp it down like a starving wolf. There is plenty to go around, so I carve off several more slices.
‘Enjoy that did you, Red?’ asks the Captain as I groan in satisfaction and fall back off my drum onto the soft sand behind me, ready to burst open.
I just laugh. I am well aware we are still shipwrecked on an island fifteen hundred miles from Australia with little hope of rescue, and we are still likely to be attacked by the bunch of wannabe pirates from Cossack, or cannibals. But I feel content.
‘Bats,’ murmurs the Captain as the creatures fly from a cave in the low cliff behind the beach. It is dusk, and they swoop and screech overhead. ‘Bats,’ he says again to himself. ‘Bats. Bat guano!’
Mr Smith looks up at him, questioningly.
‘Mr Smith, you’ve been a gunner a fair while?’
‘Ever since I was Red’s age, Captain,’ he answers.
‘How did you make gunpowder back in the old days?’ asks the Captain.
‘Several ways. Charcoal, nitrogen, saltpetre or guano, when we could find it.’ He suddenly realises. Guano. ‘The bats coming from that cave over there. I bet it is damn well full of the stuff. I’m betting there be enough guano in there to blow up the Houses of Parliament, Guy Fawkes style.’
‘First thing in the morning, Mr Smith,’ says the Captain, very pleased with himself. ‘As my old friend Mr Shakespeare would say, One fire burns out another’s burning. One pain is lessened by another’s anguish.’
I smile. It looks like the wreckers are going to be in for some anguish and burning.
The cave is much more spacious inside than it looks from the beach and we have to scramble over rocks and coconuts heaped up at the entrance.
‘It’s blacker in ’ere than Blackbeard’s beard,’ exclaims Mr Smith, holding up a burning stick.
It is dark, but worse than that, it pongs beyond anything I can remember. It is so awful I feel ready to throw up.
‘Mr Smith, the stink!’ I cry in protest.
‘Quiet, boy,’ he replies, gruffly, ‘you don’t want to wake ’em bats up. They’ll be all over you like a pestilence if you do.’
‘But Mr Smith,’ I plead. Wet bat droppings ooze up between my toes and squelch up to my ankles.
Mr Smith holds the burning stick up higher. Thousands of bats hang from the roof, their eyes glinting in the flame, their clicking almost deafening. Every surface is covered in dried white muck.
Luckily, we don’t disturb the sleeping bats. We manage to fill two drums with the driest stinking stuff from up high on rock shelves and carry them out of the cave and back to the workshop. We make sure first that we stop in the shallows to get it off our feet. I fall back in the sea to get thoroughly wet, not wanting a trace of the stink still on my clothes.
When we arrive back at the workshop, the others are up in the rafters still working on the roof and tying down the sheets of roofing iron. Many of the iron sheets are bent and twisted from the cyclone’s fury, but they will be better than nothing when the next downpour arrives, which looks like it might be this afternoon.
For much of the day, Mr Smith has me grinding up coals and ash from the stove and various cold campfires. On the bench in the workshop, he arranges about a dozen small piles of the resulting black powder, mixed with bat guano.
‘Red,’ he says, ‘fetch me a burning stick from Sam’s cooking fire, would you?’
When I hand him the stick, he touches it to the first pile. It instantly sizzles and flares up and flashes very brightly, just like summer lightning.
‘Just as I remember!’ he exclaims, smiling widely.
He touches the next one with the flame and the one after that until he has ignited all of them. By the time he has finished, I can barely see for all the bright flashes.
‘What say you, Master Read, number six was the brightest?’
I nod, agreeing. ‘By far.’
‘Then that’s the mixture we use. Time to call the Captain.’
I scurry off to find him, and by the time we return, Mr Smith has filled a coconut with the explosive mixture. He has also teased open a length of sisal rope to use as a wick for his coconut bomb. I can smell the kerosene he has soaked it in.
‘Alright, Red,’ he says, ‘you’re the guinea pig, seeing as you can run faster than any of us. Take the coconut to the water’s edge, light the wick and then get the hell out of there as quick as you can.’
I don’t say anything as it is obvious I have no choice. I take the
coconut a hundred yards away, dig a small hole in the sand to rest it in, light the fuse and toss the burning stick away as I turn and run like the Devil himself is on my tail.
‘That’ll be the hundred-yard sprint speed record,’ laughs the Captain as I arrive back panting like a racehorse.
As he says it, the flame on the sizzling wick reaches the powder. The coconut explodes with an enormous bang. A shower of coconut husks scatters into the wind and splatters back into the shallows.
‘Well done, Mr Smith. The odds for the upcoming battle have evened up a little more, don’t you think? Those wrecker swine are in for the surprise of their lives. And not just one.’
He looks at me still bent over clutching my knees and trying to get my breath. ‘You too, Red. Well done.’
‘I’ll fill the bombs with broken seashells and pebbles and the like,’ Mr Smith continues. ‘That’ll make a right mess of anyone who gets too close.’
As we walk back towards the bunkhouse, I overhear the Captain whisper to himself. ‘They’ll doubly know about it, the puking boil-brained scullians.’
I wonder what a scullion actually is, as the Captain uses the word a lot when quoting Shakespeare. I gather it is not too good.
FIRESHIPS
The next night, we sit in a circle around the fire again, watching it make patterns and cast flickering shadows, as the pile of coconut husks burn and crackle. No one says much. We are all too full, I suspect, and getting sleepy.
The Captain is unusually quiet, apparently deep in thought. Eventually, he speaks. ‘My friend William …’
‘Would that be your friend William Shakespeare?’ I ask cheekily, ‘the one who died three hundred years ago?’
‘It was only two hundred and eighty-two years ago, you insolent rapscallion. Paltry loon of a boy,’ he laughs.
Some of the others laugh too.
‘And before I was so rudely interrupted, this fire is giving me an idea.’ He pauses, then waits, so we all lean forward and listen. ‘In Mr William Shakespeare’s time, when he was writing plays and sonnets for Good Queen Bess, England came under attack by the Spanish. They sent a massive armada of ships to invade the country. The British sea captains of the day — Francis Drake, John Hawkins and Martin Frobisher — set out to engage the armada in a mighty battle, but then, unexpectedly, they withdrew, leaving eight deserted ships drifting in the breeze. Before the crews abandoned them, however, they had filled the ships with tar, pitch, brimstone and gunpowder and set them alight. They drifted up against the Spanish galleons and, before the Dons knew it, wooosh, bang and blistering bedlam, the Spanish ships were on fire. Old dry timbers, tar and canvas and a cargo of gunpowder and they went up like fat heretics being burned at the stake.’
I look about. In the firelight, I can see the men’s faces as the Captain’s plan slowly dawns on them. Several have wicked smiles on their faces.
‘But where are we gunna get a fireship, Captain?’ asks Mr Smith.
‘We make one. A fire raft. Mr Smith, Red, how about in the morning you start collecting up those kero drums that are scattered all over the place.’
I nod and smile, guessing his plan.
He continues, ‘Tie about a dozen drums together and make a raft. In fact, make half a dozen rafts. There are more than enough drums. We load the rafts up with everything that will burn fiercely, or explode, and when the wind is right …’ His voice trails off leaving us all to imagine what might happen to any Cossack lugger that dared sail in the lagoon.
‘Any questions?’ asks the Captain.
‘Er, what’s a sonnet?’ asks Briggs.
‘Gentlemen,’ says Bosun Stevenson, ‘my old war wound is playing up, and it’s not usually wrong. I think we are in for a right blow tonight. A tropical storm very soon.’
I look up at the sky, but the stars are hidden by clouds and the moon has an eerie glow as darker, fast-moving clouds pass over it.
‘We’ll soon see how good our roof repairs are, won’t we?’ he continues, getting to his feet.
As the Bosun says it, a huge raindrop splatters on my upturned face. Instantly, another hits me, and before we can even leap to our feet and race for the bunkhouse, the sky empties a massive bucket of water on our heads. As we run, the wind picks up and, almost unbelievably, within five minutes the most savage storm imaginable is lashing our island. Waves crash against the reef and the rain belts down like bullets, hitting the tin roof of the bunkhouse with all the noise of a brass band tuning up.
The roof still leaks, but only in a few places now, so it is easy to avoid the rainwater. I huddle on my bare iron bed frame in a corner as far from the door as possible. When I wake, it is weak daylight, soon after dawn I suspect, but the rain continues as heavy as the previous night.
Sam Chi has started a cooking fire in a shallow trench on the sand floor in the middle of the building, and I can hear and smell sizzling pork fat coming from a grill made of a sheet of corrugated roofing iron.
‘Breakfast, paltry loon,’ Sam calls when he sees me stir.
Slowly, the men wake, coughing, farting and grumbling as usual to welcome the new day. They gather around the warmth of the fire as the storm has cooled everything down considerably.
‘It’s easing off, Red,’ says Mr Smith, glancing out the open doorway. ‘We can get on collecting up them empty drums and get them fire rafts built. There’s no way of knowing when the wreckers will arrive, so we’d better be ready as soon as possible. If you find any full drums, bring ’em along as well. I can put the kero to good use.’
It takes us all day to collect the drums and carry them down to the beach at the centre of the bay, just above the high tide mark under a jagged limestone overhang.
The next day, Mr Smith and I collect dried coconut palm branches that have fallen at the jungle’s edge. When we have enough to make a thick bed of leaves on each raft, we set about collecting coconuts — the bigger, the better. The beach and jungle almost sink under the weight of thousands of them, so it is a quicker task.
‘Right,’ says Mr Smith, when we have a small mountain piled up, ‘use your knife and dig a ’ole in the top of each coconut, then pour in the kerosene. Seal the ’ole with rolled-up leaves to form a plug and load ’em aboard.’ He smiles, obviously satisfied that our efforts will pay off. ‘This is going to teach ’em to mess with Black Bowen and the crew of the Dragon.’
I look over to the reef. I can’t believe it. The ship has completely disappeared beneath the sea, slipping back into the depths. Not even the stumps of the masts still show. It is almost as if the Black Dragon never existed. I sigh. Not only was the Dragon the most beautiful vessel I had ever seen, it felt like it was my own personal property. I know it wasn’t really, but I still feel a dark sense of loss overwhelm me.
‘I know, Red,’ says Mr Smith, quietly, as he sees me look to the empty reef.
‘And to the fire-eyed maid of smoky war. All hot and bleeding will we offer them.’
I hadn’t heard Captain Bowen approach along the sand. As I turn, he smiles. I wonder how he manages to have a Shakespeare quote for just about every situation.
‘Henry the Fourth, part one.’
I nod and wipe sand and kerosene from my hands on my pants.
‘Good job, men,’ he says, sizing up each raft with a critical eye. ‘Sir Francis Drake would have been proud of you.’
The rafts are not pretty, with each battered drum a different shade of rust tied together with whatever we could find, and with brown palm leaves spread all over them, but the Captain seems more than satisfied.
He sniffs the air. ‘Kerosene-filled coconuts? Now that seems like a most ingenious idea, Mr Smith,’ he says. ‘They should burn like the blue blazes.’ I notice he doesn’t mention the Dragon.
‘They should go off like fireworks, Captain,’ Mr Smith answers, proudly. ‘We just ’ave to be sure those scoundrels sail into the lagoon, eh?’
‘Oh, they will, Mr Smith, they will. We’ll make sure they do. We won’t e
ven need to entice them in. They have the scent of gold in their noses. They won’t be able to wait to get ashore. They won’t come all at once though. They’ll come one at a time, testing our defences. And we’ll pick them off one at a time. We need to save one lugger, though. One to sail home in.’
Seconds later, Rowdy comes towards us holding the Captain’s binoculars.
‘Cap’n,’ he says, ‘the single lugger is still out there. I sees the glint of a telescope every so often watching us, but they’re just sittin’ ’n’ waitin’. Bow into the breeze and not movin’, so maybe they have a anchor out.’
‘That must be unpleasant for ’em,’ says Mr Smith, ‘bobbing about on the same spot day after day, just waitin’.’
‘Some of the crew have just waded ashore to that small island there, that one over to the right,’ Rowdy continues.
We can see three more small islands nearby, though they are all at least a mile or more away. Like ours, they seem to be nothing more than coral atolls of white sand beaches and palms.
Later in the day, smoke from a campfire rises from the island, and it is kept smoking, apparently as a signal for the wrecker fleet. They must be expecting them to arrive soon.
PREPARATIONS FOR WAR
The island feels fresh and clean after all the rain, and a soft breeze stops the day from becoming too hot. I go to the table outside the mess hut to get breakfast. Sam Chi seems pleased with himself as he has managed to trap enough birds to feed everyone.
‘A good plump frigate bird for you, young Red,’ he says. ‘Pirates of the sky, they are called. Appropriate, eh?’ He hands the charcoal-blackened bird to me still on the stick he used to grill it over his fire. Mine is first, and the rest of the birds still roast over the hot coals.
The Wreckers' Revenge Page 7