The Wreckers' Revenge

by Norman Jorgensen

  An hour later, the Captain suddenly stops working. ‘Mr Smith, can you call everyone here, please. I’ve had an idea.’

  ‘Another one?’ says Mr Smith, good-humouredly. ‘God help us.’

  ‘The ore wagons,’ the Captain announces when everyone is gathered. ‘The ones toppled over in the cyclone. We need to get them back on the rails and wheel them out to the end of the jetty. We’ll fill them with sand, and they’ll make excellent cover against the Cossacks’ guns.’

  ‘They won’t stop a cannon shot,’ says Mr Briggs.

  ‘No, but their cannons are mounted on the bow and can only shoot straight forward,’ replies the Captain. ‘We lure them in only when the wind and current are right so they can’t turn towards the jetty. That is a mighty current running in front of the jetty.’

  Mr Briggs nods, satisfied.

  The rusty old wagons are almost too heavy to budge, and it takes all of us grunting and sweating with several hours of exertion to get them upright. After that, we use long water pipes as levers and manage to bump them onto the rail tracks. Once the wagons are back on the rails, they are fairly easy to roll. We fill them with sand, but it takes until sunset with us carrying buckets back and forward. Later, I nearly fall asleep over our dinner of boiled red-footed boobies. They don’t taste too good, but I am starving and would eat a raw jellyfish.

  The first thing the next morning, the Captain, Mr Smith and I carry the large T-shaped weapon out to the end of the jetty. We lash the crossbow to the top of the middle wagon so it can swivel side to side, and up and down. The sand-filled steel wagon will be a most solid shield against almost anything they fire at us.

  The Captain studies our work with a critical eye. Eventually, he says, ‘Now to test it, eh, men?’

  As if on cue, Rowdy comes along the jetty towards us. In his hands, he holds two lengths of galvanised water pipe about as thick as my wrist and slightly longer than my arm. ‘This what you had in mind, Captain Bowen?’ he asks as he hands one across. ‘It was part of a kerosene pipe that fed the guano-drying machine.’

  One end of the pipe has been beaten flat to form a point while the other end has fletching cut from a kero drum wired onto the shaft.

  ‘Brilliant. Those look like good arrows.’ The Captain smiles, satisfied.

  I want to tell him that crossbow arrows are called bolts, but then he probably knows that, and besides, I’ll just sound like a know-it-all, so I keep my mouth shut.

  Using a pulley-like contraption very similar to that used to haul in a schooner’s boom and mainsail, Mr Smith heaves back my plaited shooting wire and locks it into the trigger. You can almost sense the enormous tension on the wires. Rowdy seats the bolt in the groove and steps back. I step back as well. I take another step to be sure and nearly fall right off the jetty into the ocean.

  ‘Ready, Captain Bowen? Ready, Captain Clumsy?’ Mr Smith asks, laughing.

  Both the Captain and I nod at the same time.

  Mr Smith jerks the trigger. A mighty twang rings in my ears. The arrow whooshes out of the groove and shoots across the lagoon, as straight, flat and fast as a cannonball. ‘Draw, archers, draw your arrows to the head! Spur your proud horses hard, and ride in blood; Amaze the welkin with your broken staves!’

  ‘Hamlet, Captain?’ I ask.

  ‘Richard the Third, Red. I’m impressed, though. I plan for us to be more successful than poor, humpbacked King Richard. He died soon after giving that speech.’

  He looks towards the beach. ‘Shall we try it again?’

  This time Mr Smith pivots the crossbow back towards the land. It fires just like the last time, except the arrow punches into a palm tree with a thunderous crack. The tree instantly splits in two and topples to the sand.

  The Captain looks pleased. ‘That should punch a hole right through a lugger. Now call everyone together. We’ll pull that guano machine apart, and we will make more arrows. We make as many as we can, as quickly as we can.’

  The workshop is a hive of activity, with all the men noisily pounding pipes into points with railway hammers and stones. The mood has changed. There is rising tension in the air because we all know there is a battle looming, and it is sure to be perilous and bloody.

  Sam Chi arrives from his kitchen. ‘Dinner’s ready,’ he says. ‘Robber crab.’

  As he says it, we hear a single shot from the small island where the crew of the lugger are stranded.

  He jokes, ‘That’ll be fricassee of rat for main course. Again.’

  The men laugh louder and longer than the joke is worth.

  For some reason, I don’t laugh. I feel nervous at the thought of what lies ahead, my possible untimely death at the hand of a bunch of vicious, revenge-crazed wreckers.

  Mr Smith must have noticed. He is first to head back to the camp, and as he steps past me he reaches across and squeezes my shoulder.

  THE WRECKERS ARRIVE

  Mr Briggs is first to see them. It is about nine or so in the morning, and he is on watch, sitting up on the roof of the bunkhouse, his legs straddling the ridge. ‘Ahoy!’ he calls loudly. ‘They’re here! They’re on the horizon, nor’, nor’-east!’ he calls. ‘Three … four … five … Five. Red, tell the Captain,’ he calls down to me.

  ‘I can’t see him anywhere!’ I yell out.

  ‘He’s down on the beach floating coconuts again,’ says Rowdy. ‘Saw him about half an hour ago.’

  I run down the sand, and, sure enough, that is precisely where the Captain is. Sam Chi is with him. They see me running and wait. The Captain is not carrying coconuts, though, but a large coral rock. Sam lugs a length of fallen timber over his shoulder. They have built a low fort-like wall at the water’s edge. The small wall is about waist high and is covered with palm fronds like a hunter’s hide.

  ‘They’re here?’ Sam asks, guessing by my urgent reaction.

  ‘Yes,’ I say, breathlessly. ‘Briggs counts five luggers.’ I do a quick sum in my head. Five luggers each with at least half a dozen men. That is more than thirty against our small crew. I take a deep breath at the thought of such overwhelming odds. Maybe I have every right to be nervous.

  Neither the Captain nor Sam seem particularly bothered by the news, but I certainly am. There is only one reason they have come all this way, and that is to murder us all. How can they not be bothered? We have no real weapons, and we know they have cannons and rifles.

  Minutes later, the fire on the small island that has been burning day and night suddenly releases an extra thick plume of black smoke.

  ‘Looks like they’ve seen them too, then,’ says Sam.

  ‘Well, men,’ says the Captain, ‘the breeze is in the right quarter, so it is time we light our signal fire as well. If you were the leading captain out there, which one would you head for? Ours, or that one?’ He tips his head towards the other island.

  Sam Chi thinks for several seconds. ‘I’d send in a boat to each island,’ he says, eventually. ‘One to find out, but also a back-up in case it is us. They’ll want to know if we are here and if we are ready to fight and are still dangerous.’

  ‘And we are here to prove both those things, Sam. That we are even more dangerous than they can possibly imagine,’ replies the Captain. He strokes his chin and smiles roguishly as he says it.

  ‘Had we better hurry, Captain?’ I ask.

  ‘Red, you remember me telling you about Sir Francis Drake and the Spanish Armada? When Drake was told the armada had been sighted, he checked the breeze and famously said there was plenty of time to finish his game of bowls and still beat the Spaniards. Well, I have checked the breeze, and we have plenty of time to light the bonfire and stroll back to the settlement and have lunch. In fact, we have until late this afternoon to still beat the wreckers.’

  ‘Here, Red.’ The Captain reaches into his pocket and pulls out the ruins of his pocket watch, destroyed during the first attack when we went overboard. The curved glass is loose. He points to the end of the beach, not that far away.


  I see that the two of them have built a hefty pile of green leaves, dried coconuts and dried palm fronds at the far end of the cove. ‘Get the bonfire started. The sun is more than bright enough. It’ll only take a few minutes. Mr Smith and I will see you back at the settlement.’

  He is right. I use the watch glass and concentrate the light on a bunch of coconut hair at the bottom of the pile. It smoulders for a second and then quickly bursts into flame. Within minutes, the whole stack is ablaze, and the flames start licking at the green vegetation on the top. Thick smoke rises skywards in a column.

  Pretending I am Sir Francis Drake, I stroll back to the settlement with my hands in my pockets like I don’t have a care in the world, until the last hundred yards when I can’t help myself anymore, and run the rest of the way.

  The Captain sees me. ‘Red, when it all starts, I want you with Mr Smith and Rowdy behind the railway wagons on the jetty. You can help load the crossbow, but for God’s sake keep your head down. They’ll have rifles, remember. As we’ve seen before, they are not afraid to use them.’

  He turns to Mr Smith, ‘And speaking of the crossbow, what do you think about wrapping rope soaked in kero around the end of the arrows? Set them alight just before you fire. We’ll see if we can cause such a firestorm it will fry their backsides.’

  ‘We can give it a try,’ he replies. ‘Another job for you, Master Read.’

  I am about to go and look for a full drum of kerosene and a length of thin rope from the workshop and a bucket to soak it in when the Captain speaks again. ‘I’ve been looking out there. That lugger that is hanging back, the one with clean white sails. I recognise it as one from Nipper and Dickie Chi’s shipyard in Broome. Their style. It’s new and well built. Faster than the rest. That’s the one we need to capture for ourselves. We’ll try not to burn that one to the waterline. The others can go to hell and damnation.’

  ‘Only hell and damnation? That’s very generous of you, Captain,’ laughs Bosun Stevenson.

  I have just finished winding the kero-stinking rope around all the arrow shafts when the Captain calls, ‘It’s time, men! They’re coming. Everyone in position!’

  The others get up from where they have been lounging about, waiting quietly. The Bosun heads up the beach towards the rock overhang where two of the fire rafts are located. Briggs continues on along further to where the next raft is, half hidden at the jungle’s edge. They both carry burning sticks.

  At the same time, Sam Chi and the Captain move down the beach to their wall of rocks and timber. Behind the wall, the explosive coconut bombs sit in kerosene drums cut in half and weighed down with sand so they won’t topple over in the water. Their rope wicks, all of different lengths, are ready to be lit. The Captain hopes that the explosions will cause lots of confusion with the enemy, so they won’t notice the real attack — the fire rafts.

  Having tested the first one, I can guarantee the wreckers are in for a great big surprise.

  I look down at the ocean from my place on the end of the jetty. A piece of driftwood rushes towards us. ‘We have the current in our favour, and the afternoon sun is behind us, so the attackers will be looking directly into it,’ I say to Mr Smith.

  He grunts, ‘You’re learning, boy.’

  Sam Chi’s prediction that the wreckers will send in two of the luggers proves true. The luggers approach the lagoon slowly, their sails only half full as the breeze has dropped to a few knots. A crew member up on the bow of the closest one leans over and watches out for the reef, the same jagged reef the Black Dragon struck. Before too long, the first lugger gets caught in the swift current and drifts sideways faster than it heads forward. At the stern, the helmsman leans against the tiller as far as it will go, but he has little effect. They are in the unrelenting grip of the fast current, just as the Captain planned.

  ‘Soon, Red,’ says Mr Smith, calmly.

  As usual, my heart has started beating faster at the thought of the battle ahead.

  The lugger draws closer, almost drifting sideways, so its bow guns point out to sea away from us. Closer and closer. The stink of rotten pearl meat reaches me. I know that stench so well from the hundreds of pearl luggers that moor in the mud flats directly below the Smuggler’s Curse verandah in the off-season.

  A hundred yards or so from the jetty a soft breeze catches the mainsail the wrong way, and the lugger slows. On deck near the mast, at least three crew hold rifles ready, watching. There is another sailor in the crow’s nest, also with a gun.

  ‘Look at ’im. Who does ’e think ’e is?’ mutters Mr Smith. ‘Lord Nelson was shot by a French sniper ’igh in the mast at the Battle of Trafalgar. Shot right in the top of ’is shoulder, ’e was. Well, that ain’t gunna happen at the Battle of Cocos.’ Mr Smith pivots the crossbow stock downwards, so the arrow aims higher. He sights down the groove. ‘No need for the flame yet, Red. He’s aiming at our Sam. I’ll put a stop to that,’ says Mr Smith, calmly.

  From across the bay in the shallows near the reef, all of a sudden the Captain’s voice rings out loud and clear as he shouts, ‘And Caesar’s spirit, ranging for revenge, come hot from hell, cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war!’

  Immediately, one of the Captain’s bombs goes off with a loud, sharp crack. I duck at the sudden shock of the bang even though it is nowhere near me. Hot from hell, indeed. More like the exploding coconuts of war.

  At that exact moment, Mr Smith fires the crossbow. Thud! The arrow hits the sniper in the crow’s nest. A quick spray of blood bursts into the air as the steel arrow passes straight through him. He jerks, flings his rifle away, and falls, while the heavy arrow continues skywards, soaring in a long arc. Without a cry, the sniper thuds onto the deck, leaking blood.

  ‘That one was for Lord Nelson,’ says Mr Smith, quietly.

  I don’t know what I was expecting, but I am stunned. I shouldn’t be as I have been with the crew long enough to know that sudden violence can erupt at any time. You would think I might be a bit harder by now. Instead, I stare stupidly at the dead seaman sprawled awkwardly on the lugger’s deck.

  The other men on board the lugger also seem stunned into inaction by the falling body crashing at their feet. They don’t even lift their guns for a second or two. Finally, one snaps to. He kneels, angrily lifts his rifle to his shoulder, and fires at us. The bullet thumps into the steel wagon with a dull clang. His gun must be a repeater as he quickly fires six more bullets in quick succession. Some slam into the side of the wagons, others ricochet off with a zing. Another crewman also shoots. He too peppers the wagons with shots but makes only a lot of noise.

  ‘Red! When the next bomb goes off!’

  Ten seconds later, another explosion bangs loudly. I lift my head, lean forward and touch my burning stick to the kero-soaked rope on the arrow. It flares. Mr Smith fires. The burning arrow thumps into the lugger’s deck, near the mainmast. I duck back down. The firing continues. The crew are too busy shooting at us to look behind themselves. The burning kero has set the tar sealing the deck planks alight. Little ribbons of bright flames dance along the black joints, leaping from one to another along the whole length of the boat.

  The second lugger is further back. Its crew also shoot at us but the distance is too great for them to be accurate, and I hear the whizz of bullets pass over our heads.

  ‘Red! Rowdy! This is just what the Captain wants, but keep your ’eads down.’

  I don’t need telling. I lay flat on the jetty. Peering between the big iron railway wheels, off in the distance I see Bosun Stevenson light his fire raft and push it out into the current. The flames catch instantly and burn fiercely, and within a few minutes, the current grabs the raft and forces it straight towards the second lugger, just as the Captain had worked out with his floating coconuts. Briggs’ raft also floats their way, its fire just as fierce.

  Another bomb goes off. I jump to my feet and light the next arrow. This one shoots across the lagoon and straight into the deck cabin of the farthest lugger. We hear gl
ass shatter and a loud shriek. The second lugger heaves to starboard but then stops dead in its tracks and begins to swivel away as the wind catches the mainsail and pulls at the canvas from the side.

  Suddenly, someone close by yells in surprise. The crew has finally realised their lugger is on fire. Both sails are alight with raging flames leaping upwards, devouring the dry canvas. Smoke fills the air. The firing stops as the crew toss their guns aside and, coughing helplessly, leap overboard.

  We can’t stop. Bullets from the second lugger still slam into our hiding place. We fire another burning arrow. It tears into the hull and flames flare up. A minute later, the firing from there ceases as well.

  I chance a peek.

  ‘Get down!’ yells Mr Smith, angrily.

  The Bosun’s fire raft has drifted against the distant lugger and flames burn out of control on the lugger’s side near the stern. Dense black smoke almost hides it from view. In the water, several heads bob in the sea nearby as the crew attempt to swim away from the quickly developing inferno.

  ‘They can swim?’ I say, surprised.

  ‘It’s only us blue-water sailors who are ’fraid of the water,’ says Rowdy, the first thing he has said since we arrived on the jetty. ‘They’re just pearlers. Not real sailors. Scum of the earth, most of ’em.’

  ‘Stay down!’ Mr Smith yells again. ‘Get back behind those wagons. Now! If that boat blows, you’ll know all about it.’

  It explodes soon after. The hull at the waterline blows apart with an enormous muffled bang as the ship’s magazine of gunpowder ignites. It sinks up to its deck, and all sorts of personal effects, but mostly rubbish, float away from the shattered hull.