The Wreckers' Revenge

by Norman Jorgensen

  ‘And I’m Queen bloody Victoria!’ he shouts back, derisively. ‘I know Black Bowen, you lying wort. Everyone knows he only wears black.’

  The Captain looks down at his ragged, faded clothes and now shabby, salt-stained boots. He runs his fingers through his unkempt hair. ‘We were shipwrecked. We are on our way back to Broome.’

  ‘I see him,’ says Mr Smith, whispering. ‘Behind the garden wall beside the tavern. See the bougainvillea bush? I can hit him from here. One shot.’

  ‘No need, Mr Smith,’ replies the Captain, equally quietly.

  ‘What’s your name?’ he continues to the hidden man.

  ‘None of your damn business. Now clear off, and take your gang of filthy bandits with you,’ he yells back.

  ‘Now listen to me, thou foul-faced loon. We are here to help you, thou ungrateful, unmuzzled folly-fallen lout! Thou lumpish clay-brained gudgeon!’ commands the Captain, getting angry.

  I recognise the changed tone of Captain Bowen’s voice. Even though he is channelling Shakespeare, if this bloke with the gun knows what is good for him, he had better be more reasonable.

  The man suddenly stands up. ‘It is you. I don’t believe it!’ He is about the Captain’s age, solid and dressed in his shirtsleeves with gold bands on the arms to hold back his cuffs, like bank tellers and barmen wear. He also has a long white apron tied around his waist.

  The Captain pauses for a moment, recalling. ‘Potts,’ he announces as if he is happy to see the man, ‘I do declare. I wondered where you had washed up after the navy. Here, I see. Running a bar, no doubt? Your true calling.’

  ‘You know him, Captain?’ asks Sam, sounding surprised.

  ‘Chief Petty Officer Tom Potts. We served together. He’s a good man.’

  ‘Look at the state of you, Captain Bowen. I didn’t even recognise you. Not until the Shakespeare,’ continues Potts. ‘And Master-Gunner Smith. You are still sailing together all these years later.’

  ‘Hello, Chief,’ replies Mr Smith, looking to the ground where the bullets hit. ‘I hope that wasn’t your best shot? I taught you better than that.’

  On hearing the men talking, several more faces appear from behind the wall and some from behind the buildings. In all, a dozen people have been hiding. About half are armed.

  ‘The Cossack crooks? They attacked you?’ Mr Potts asks when our group join them outside his tavern.

  Mr Smith laughs. ‘Big mistake by them. We left ‘em stranded on an island off Cocos. The abandoned guano mine. They came after our Captain’s crew. Tried to kill us. We stopped them.’

  ‘No one harms Captain Bowen’s crew and gets to boast about it,’ I add, helpfully. ‘No one.’

  ‘I remember,’ says Mr Potts, smiling.

  The islanders also all grin widely at the thought of the marooned Cossacks. It seems to be the best news they have had in ages.

  ‘They are an evil bunch,’ I continue, having got an audience. ‘They originally tried to wreck our boat on a reef near Cossack, and then they came after us on our way to Cocos, and fired cannons at us. We ran, but we were so damaged that we eventually sank.’

  ‘You managed to get your revenge then?’ asks Potts. ‘In spite of that?’

  ‘We sure did!’ I say excitedly.

  ‘Yes,’ confirms the Captain, quietly. ‘How shall I be revenged on them? For revenged I will be, as sure as their guts are made of puddings.’

  It is a Shakespeare quote I’ve never heard him use before.

  ‘About now,’ he continues, ‘they should be regretting their decision …’

  ‘… as they sit down to yet another meal of baked rat,’ finishes off Sam Chi.

  ‘Are you going to tell anyone where they are, or leave them stranded and let them take their chances?’ asks Mr Potts.

  ‘Revenge can be quick, or it can be slow, deliberate and delicious. I’m giving them fear, hunger and terminal boredom most of all, with as much time to do nothing but think all day, every day, until they endlessly regret their stupid, greedy actions,’ replies the Captain, smiling slyly.’

  The islanders all nod, obviously thinking he may be right.

  ‘Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once.’ As the Captain says it, another shot rings out loudly. A bullet ricochets off a rock on the ground. It zings into the air. The Captain cries out in shock as he is flung back, collapsing with a thud on the ground, his arms and legs spreadeagled.

  I cannot believe my eyes. Shocked beyond belief, I look around in confusion to see who fired. Who shot my Captain?

  ‘I’m sorry! I’m sorry! It was an accident,’ whimpers a fair-headed boy on the other side of the wall. He is not much older than me. ‘My gun. It went off by accident. I swear.’ He looks terrified.

  So he should be. My first thought is to pull out my Colt and shoot him right between his eyes, but the Captain lies on the ground a few feet away groaning in pain.

  I rush over and kneel beside him. ‘Captain!’ I call in panic. I lift his shoulders, so he is sitting upright, but he screams in pain. ‘I’m sorry,’ I say, my eyes filling with tears.

  ‘Red, I’ve been shot,’ he grunts, grimacing at the effort.

  He carefully lifts his left arm to look and winces in pain, and I see the whole side of his shirt is dark red.

  I pull off my shirt, bunch it up and press it into his armpit to try and stop the bleeding. ‘Stay still, Captain. It will be alright,’ I cry. This can’t be happening. Not to Captain Bowen. Not now, now that I know who he really is. Not after all this time surviving our hair-raising adventures together. Not when I need him more than ever. ‘Oh Captain, my Captain,’ I whisper.

  Sam Chi immediately kneels on his other side. ‘Potts,’ he calls, ‘you have a first-aid post? Medicine chest?’ It is not a request, but a command.

  Still shocked, like the rest of us, Potts takes a second to answer. ‘Yes, yes. Bring Captain Bowen inside the tavern. Lay him on a table. We have a chest in there.’

  The Captain takes several deep breaths and coughs, causing him to grimace in pain again, before speaking.

  ‘Help me up, men.’

  He can still walk with us supporting him, but he winces in pain with each step. Sam and I slowly lead him along the road and inside to a table in Tom’s Tavern near the window where we carefully lower him onto his back.

  The smell of stale beer and the stink of boiled cabbage wafting from the kitchen instantly remind me of the Smuggler’s Curse and of home. Homesickness washes over me, and fear for the Captain. He has to survive. I can’t imagine anything else.

  ‘Mr Potts, I need two bottles of Johnnie Walker whisky,’ commands Sam, breaking my spell.

  ‘You don’t like Johnnie Walker,’ grunts the Captain, speaking with difficulty.

  ‘That’s why that brand,’ says Sam. ‘It’s not for me, it’s for you, Captain. You will need as much as you can get down you. We’ll save the good stuff for afterwards.’

  We prop the Captain’s head up onto several rolled-up bar towels.

  ‘Swig this, Captain,’ commands Sam. ‘All of it.’

  The Captain carefully raises himself up on his unharmed side and drinks most of the whisky in large gulps. Eventually, he begins muttering gibberish before collapsing back onto the table.

  ‘Bite on this, Captain.’ Sam places a length of thick rope in the poor man’s teeth. ‘I’m going to get that bullet out. It may hurt a little.’

  Sam nods to us. We take our positions. Mr Smith and Mrs Crawford are to hold down his shoulders, and I grab hold of his right leg, while Mr Potts holds down the other.

  The Captain cries out deliriously as pain washes over him.

  ‘He ain’t felt nothin’ yet,’ says Sam. ‘There is no exit wound so the bullet must still be in his armpit. It will have to come out, or he will surely die.’

  I look in shock for a moment. The Captain? Die? That is not possible. Captain Bowen is indestructible. I immediately come to my senses, and my
heart starts beating faster at the frightening possibility of losing him. My eyes fill with tears, and I hold back a sob.

  ‘You, boy,’ calls Sam to the fair-headed boy who now sits at the far side of the room, rocking on his chair. ‘I want you to find a box of cartridges. You have to pull the bullets apart with some plyers and pour out the powder. Half a cupful of gunpowder will be enough.’

  I wince, knowing what is coming. It is not something you would wish on your worst enemy, and certainly not on your father.

  Sam pokes about in Mr Pott’s medicine chest until he finds what he is looking for. ‘Aha.’ He holds up a long thin piece of steel like a knitting needle. ‘Bullet probe,’ he announces happily.

  The Captain recovers consciousness and cringes, his face screwed up in endless waves of pain.

  When the boy returns with an enamel mug full of black powder, Sam nods again, and we all take our places once more.

  Sam washes the probe in the whisky, gently lifts the Captain’s arm over his head and then, very slowly, inserts the end of the probe in the weeping dark hole under his armpit. Sam pushes it in as far as he can and then starts tapping it about to listen for the clink of the lead bullet. The Captain cries out in agony, even louder this time as if that were at all possible. Pulling the probe out, Sam prods it in a second time at another angle. Again, the Captain wails in anguish and tries to thrash about, but we all hold him down hard, even though my hands are shaking. Blood gushes from the wound. His breath comes in sudden pants like he has just run a marathon. His head tosses back and forth.

  The probe is inserted a third time. This time, Captain Bowen takes a massive bite on the rope and passes out completely. Just then, we all hear the distinct clink of steel on lead. I sure am glad about that. I can’t bear to see him suffer like this.

  ‘Now to get it out.’ Sam takes a pair of long-nosed pliers from the box and washes them in whisky as well. Seconds later, thankfully, he drops the bloodied bullet on the floor.

  He jams a bundle of cotton against the wound that has now started to bleed profusely. ‘Now, Mr Potts, I need a flame.’

  Sam carefully lifts Captain Bowen’s arm again and sprinkles the gunpowder all over the wound, and before it can get too wet with blood, he touches a flame to it. Just like when Mr Smith and I made gunpowder, it flares up with white-hot light, scorching the Captain’s skin and instantly cauterising the wound. The smell of sizzling flesh, not unlike roast pork, fills the air.

  The poor Captain does not have any more fight left in him, not even enough for a final groan. He sighs in submission and fades back into oblivion, the best place for him, his chest rising and falling rapidly.

  ‘Where did you learn all that, Sam?’ asks Mrs Crawford.

  ‘A lot of practice, Miss,’ he replies. ‘Some years ago there were massacres inland from Broome. There were a couple of cattle station owners up our way who decided our local people were nuisances and needed to be got rid off. They went on hunting trips. Hunted us like wild animals. So much slaughter and mayhem. I treated a lot of the wounded survivors. There were so many gunshot wounds.’

  I had heard the massacre stories from customers at the Curse. The Aborigines sure have it tough. If it is not white men’s diseases killing them off, it is unscrupulous pearling captains and cattle station owners treating them like dirt. Even a lot of town people refuse to have anything to do with them, so they are forced to live on the outskirts of town in hovels in grinding poverty.

  ‘Anyway,’ Sam continues, ‘those two station owners have since gone to their own Dreamtime. One hung himself. They reckon the isolation done for him. The other got snakebit. Died in agony.’

  But Sam smiles mischievously as if he knows better.

  Mrs Crawford looks shocked, as we can all see from Sam’s look that both men were most certainly murdered. ‘Will Captain Bowen recover?’ she asks.

  ‘He has as much chance as anyone, Miss,’ says Sam. ‘The bullet is out, the wound was washed in whisky and burnt shut. It should mend itself in a few weeks. We’ll know in a few days. If infection doesn’t set in, he’ll be fine, though he’ll be taking it a fair bit easier for a while.’

  FLYING FISH COVE

  Every morning I go and visit the Captain who is being cared for at Mr and Mrs Potts’ house right beside the tavern. Drugged up with laudanum and whisky for the pain, he sleeps most of the time, but, happily, his wound does not seem to be infected.

  One morning, a week after the shooting, the Captain opens his eyes and sees me sitting on a chair beside his bed. He looks as tired as anyone I have ever seen, his face is haggard, and his eyes are bloodshot and ringed with dark circles. In fact, he looks even more tired than I feel, and I don’t think I’ve slept at all ever since it happened, worried sick about him.

  ‘Well, Captain Read,’ he says weakly, ‘fancy seeing you here. Sam told me you’ve been every day.’

  ‘I had to make sure you were alright, Captain.’

  ‘Oh, I will be in fine fettle soon enough,’ he answers. ‘This is not the first time I’ve been shot. Sam tells me it was only a .22 bullet and it ricocheted off the ground stealing most of its force. Nothing broken and no bits of bone have to be dug out. It hurts like the dickens, though, I can tell you, no word of a lie.’

  ‘I was very worried, Captain. I thought you had been shot dead. I thought we were going to lose you. I honestly did.’

  ‘Not this time, Red. The ghost of my Mr Shakespeare must want me to live and flourish a bit longer.’ He pauses. ‘The boy who did it?’ he asks.

  ‘He’s not a boy. He’s about sixteen,’ I reply. ‘He’s called Joe King.’

  ‘Seriously?’ he asks, with a small chuckle.

  I nod. What’s so funny?

  ‘You haven’t … done anything to him, have you? Sam tells me his shot was an accident.’

  ‘I wanted to right off, Captain. I did go and see him though. I was going to fill him so full of holes Ma could have strained vegetables with him. But he was really upset. He wanted to come and apologise to you when you were feeling better. After hearing that, I didn’t have the heart to …’

  ‘Ah, the quality of mercy, eh, Red,’ he replies. ‘It is enthroned in the hearts of kings.’ He grins, satisfied. ‘Now I need to sleep, perchance to dream.’

  I head off, quietly closing the door as I go.

  We stay at Christmas Island for almost a month waiting for the Captain to recover, and every day his wound slowly heals. Happily, he grows stronger and is soon up and about and sitting on the deck at the back of the tavern.

  After visiting him most afternoons, I go swimming off the end of the jetty with some of the local kids. They are the children of Malay and Chinese workers at the phosphate mine, and they live in kampongs near Flying Fish Cove. The two I like best, Anwar and Lim, also take me duck-diving off the far point of the cove and we search for lobsters and squid and spear the occasional fish. The water is warm and clear, and we stay in for hours.

  I think we might have left for home earlier because the Captain’s wound seems to be completely healed, but the wind is against us, and, besides, the crew are enjoying themselves too much, reminiscing about their old days in the navy. They stay up late into the night laughing and telling tall tales.

  Tonight, I am down the hill at the beach having dinner with the Malay families. Anwar has invited me to meet his family and their friends, and his mother has a basket full of laksas and satays and all sorts of food I have never heard of. They have lit a campfire on the foreshore and heat the food in a big shallow iron bowl. It smells delicious. When we sit to eat, Anwar’s mum serves me up a dish full to overflowing.

  ‘Terima kasih, bau yang lazat,’ I say, remembering the words Teuku taught me for ‘thank you, it smells delicious’.

  She beams at my attempt at Malay, even though it is probably woeful, and answers in a string of words I don’t understand.

  Anwar and Lim learn English at the schoolhouse up on the hill, but none of their mothers speak any,
and their fathers have a smattering from working with Australian supervisors at the mine. Still, we have a wonderful time with all the mothers trying to fatten me up. The women especially seem to think I am funny for some reason, and they laugh and giggle at me as they near on force-feed me. After dinner, we go for another swim and relax, and then I fall asleep, as full as a size thirteen boot.

  Early the next morning, I wake suddenly. Captain Bowen looms over me. The fight with Brother Christian flashes through my mind. I am on my back on a bed of palm fronds near the water’s edge at the beach where we had the picnic last night. My new friends are nearby, still asleep.

  ‘We are off, Red, heading home. Rise and shine. The others are already on board. We’ll raise anchor in about an hour. You can come with us now or swim out when you’re ready.’

  ‘Thanks, Captain,’ I reply. I can see Anwar’s mum is already up and cooking breakfast and, like last night, it smells delicious. ‘I’ll swim out in an hour.’

  After breakfast, Anwar and Lim and my other new friends wish me well, before I slip into the sea and head for the lugger. It is about a ten-minute swim out to the Tartar, and I take it easy. I am about halfway when I suddenly hear shouting from the beach. I look back. Anwar waves and yells frantically, but I am too far away to hear him.

  Gunshots ring out ahead of me. Something is seriously wrong. I wipe the saltwater from my eyes. Anna stands at the rail firing her small silver gun into the sea. One, two, three shots, then two more. Then I see it. The enormous dorsal fin. It sticks above the surface like a dark grey sail and slices through the water at high speed. White spray forms as it parts the sea. And it is coming straight for me. I blink in horror, paralysed in terror. I stay quiet, still treading water, gulping in air and seawater. I reach for my knife, but I know it will be useless. From this angle, the shark looks to be the length of the Black Dragon. I can hear whimpering like a small child crying, then realise it must be me.

  Back at the Tartar, Sam leaps from the deck of the lugger into the dinghy. The bow bounces out of the sea as he lands in the stern. The Captain is next. They cut the cable and push off. Mr Smith appears at the rail, his Winchester to his shoulder and firing it, working the loading lever like a gunslinger. He shoots almost without aiming. One of his bullets must have hit the shark. It suddenly changes direction and rises out of the water. It is even bigger than I first thought. It is a fully grown tiger shark, shiny grey and the size of a tram. Its massive mouth snaps angrily open for a moment, and I see straight down its horrible pink gullet, past row upon row of razor-sharp teeth.