He had to admit that the damn pirates knew these islands the way he had once known the streets of London, every twist and turn and secret back alley.
He spat down into the water. To hell with them. When his path had crossed Fitzpayne’s before in Shanghai, Madoc had come off worse in a difference of opinion over shipping Russian girls to brothels in the Philippines. Madoc had had to leave Shanghai after that, in a hurry. This time he was being more careful. He’d taken to playing cards with Farid, the pirate from Batavia, the one with the nose like a camel and the simple mind. Bit by bit he was gleaning snippets of useful information from him, and next session he was planning to gamble his wedding ring, but he didn’t tell Kitty that. Madoc was willing to be patient. Oddly, it was Kitty who was in a God Almighty rush to take the boat and skedaddle as soon as her hull was patched up a bit more.
‘No, Kitty. Let’s get her properly repaired in that bastard’s island workshop, and then …’
‘Then they’ll be too many for us. We’ll never get The White Pearl away. Can’t you see that, you pea-brain?’
He’d sighed. ‘No, Kitty. When she’s in good trim we can make a run in her, east to Australia or, if you want, west to Ceylon and India. New territory for us, a new life, where …’
She had slapped him, a round-armed flat of the hand. ‘Don’t push your luck, Madoc. We can handle these three pirates, the odds are in our favour, even though the boss man, Nurul, watches you like a hawk. Even now, while he’s working on the beach, he has one eye fixed on you and I’m bloody certain he will want to know what this row is about. I bet you he’ll sidle over the minute my back is turned, offer you a beer and get you talking. Just make sure you think before you speak.’
Now Madoc scanned the edge of the forest for any rustle of branches, any sign of her return, a flicker of her white cotton blouse, but the black mass of trunks had swallowed her. He worried about snakes and poisonous spiders, but she would have slapped him a bloody sight harder if he had dared forbid her to go off on her own. He looked down at the bottle of Tiger beer in his hand. Damn her, she’d been right about Nurul. Nevertheless, he smiled to himself and lit another of Hadley’s Dunhill cigarettes from the butt of the old one. There was something Madoc didn’t intend to tell his wife. After a few beers the gold-toothed pirate had confessed a weakness for blondes, and for one blonde in particular – the one who had given him her Cartier timepiece.
Watch your step, Fitzpayne, or you may find the blade of a Malayan kris so deep in your back you’ll be eating your own fucking heart.
*
‘Mr Fitzpayne, I’d like to see over this island of yours … if you have time.’
‘I wondered when you’d ask.’
Fitzpayne finished sharpening the tip of a wooden stake and placed it on top of a pile of them. Other men who were working beside him had melted into the forest at Connie’s approach, glancing back at her with distrust, their faces dark-skinned and suspicious.
‘They don’t like my being here,’ she commented.
‘Of course not.’
‘Why?’
‘Because you are a foreigner and therefore an enemy.’
‘But so are you. A foreigner, I mean.’
He nodded and reached for his shirt on the ground. The muscles of his stomach gleamed flat and hard. ‘Out here in East Asia we are all foreigners,’ he said, ‘and we have to give them reason to want us here. Reasons to trust us.’
He slipped his shirt over his head, and Connie noticed it had blood on the sleeve. At that moment there was a sudden roar of aircraft engines, and without comment or even glancing up, Fitzpayne pulled her deeper into the shelter of the forest. Her mind seemed to flatten, skidding away from her.
‘It’s all right to be frightened,’ Fitzpayne said gently. ‘It’s wartime. Everyone is frightened.’
Her back was jammed against the bark of a tree that was crawling with ants. One hand was shaking.
‘Where’s Teddy?’ she whispered.
‘He’s safe.’
‘Where?’
‘I’ll show you.’
It was like walking into hell. The smoke, the heat, the resounding noise that made her lungs vibrate and the stench of hot metal. All rushed at Connie the moment she stepped into the massive underground chamber.
‘Our workshops,’ Fitzpayne announced.
There was an arrogance in his words. Connie studied his face by the uncertain light of the kerosene lamps, and saw pride in it. This place may be communal but it was his doing, she had no doubt of that. It was a long, arched cavern with earthen walls. Three blacksmiths’ furnaces lined one wall, where men with glistening backs bent over anvils and hammered molten metal into shape with blows that exploded in Connie’s ears. Flames sent twisted shadows crawling up the wall like tortured souls.
‘Doesn’t the smoke from these fumes give you away?’ she asked.
‘No. It is vented into a side chamber and released only at night. That’s when the cooking fires are lit too – in the Kennel after dark.’
‘I’m impressed,’ she shouted above the noise. ‘No wonder you want to bring The White Pearl here.’
‘Come with me.’
He took her hand and led her towards a heavy hardwood door in the side wall. It swung open into another cavern, not as wide as the first one but just as long, clearly an additional workshop, but this one was stacked with timber. Fitzpayne shut the door firmly behind him to keep out the smoke and even though a few grey wisps sneaked in, they could not smother the wonderful scent of freshly cut timber that drenched the chamber. Two tapering masts ran along the centre on trestles with men sanding them down to a smooth finish. Elsewhere saws rasped teeth against seasoned wood, and Connie noticed the ribs of a rowing boat held into curves by metal clamps.
‘This is where we are making the repairs to send out to Nurul for your yacht, enough to bring her here for a proper overhaul.’ He frowned at her. ‘Don’t look so worried! She’ll soon be …’
‘She doesn’t feel like my yacht any more. The connection has gone.’
He straightened his shoulders, and she had a sense of him shifting a weight on them, one that sat uneasily. ‘Perhaps it will come back. When all this is over.’
‘When all this is over we will no longer be the people we were.’
He nodded, a quick decisive gesture before he turned away. ‘Take a look at your son.’
‘Teddy?’
She followed the line of his hand. Buzzing around the workmen like industrious bees were four young boys, each with a broom made of twigs in his hand. They wore cloths tied around their heads to combat the sawdust in the air, no shirt but short trousers chopped at the knee and rope sandals on their feet. Three of the boys were brown-skinned, but one was white and had his back to her.
‘Teddy?’ Connie said softly.
Her son was sweeping up a pile of wood chippings and heaping them into a burlap sack. He moved eagerly, and she could tell he was enjoying himself, rummaging in the dirt and the mess. From a woven rattan basket that hung on his chest poked the black head of Pippin, his tongue licking sweat from Teddy’s salty skin.
‘Good heavens!’ She turned to Fitzpayne. ‘How did that happen?’
‘A boy needs to work for his supper here,’ he smiled.
‘So young?’
‘Younger the better.’ He glanced to one side, where the tall skinny boy from the fight in the Kennel was extracting nails from old timber with a pair of pliers. ‘It’s the only way he’ll be accepted here.’
Connie felt a warmth of gratitude to this man, who seemed to understand more about bringing up her son than she did herself.
‘And Johnnie?’ she asked. ‘Have you got him and Henry digging pits for their supper?’
He laughed, relaxing, and she realised that he had feared she would snatch Teddy out of there. Didn’t he know her better than that?
‘Near enough,’ he chuckled. ‘They’re both in the Kennel, stripping fibres from climbers to plait rope
s. Blake’s arm is up to that.’
‘And Maya?’
‘That little wildcat took one look at the box of fish that needed gutting and vanished.’
Connie nodded. ‘That sounds like her. So what about me? What work are you setting me to do to earn my supper?’
He observed her, arms folded across his chest and one thick eyebrow raised, his wide jaw glistening with black stubble in the lamplight. He shrugged. ‘You can sew, so you said.’
‘Damn you, I can do more than sew.’
‘What?’
‘Something more useful.’
‘Can you cook?’
‘No.’
‘Can you chop down a tree?’
‘No.’
‘Can you repair a net?’
‘No.’
He seized her elbow and steered her down a small dark tunnel and out into the fresh air. It was pouring with rain. In less than five seconds they were soaked.
‘You will sew,’ he told her. ‘I will tell the men to bring you what needs doing.’
‘What about the other women on this island?’
He gave her a slow unamused smile. ‘They cook. And certainly there are no honey-haired beauties with a throat the colour of her pearls and legs as long as a lemur’s.’
He walked away into the forest, leaving Connie standing alone on the trail in the rain, and she wondered how on earth she had managed to annoy him this time.
There were Rules on the island. Any infringement of them was punishable by death by hanging. No argument, no discussion. No judge, no jury. A rope over a tree. Quick. Instant.
No swimming in the sea in daylight hours.
No boats in and out, except at night.
No guns to be discharged.
No telescopes.
No mirrors outside huts.
Fights to be conducted with fists, knives or boat hooks. Boat hooks?
Cooking to be carried out only in the Kennel.
Blackout to be observed. Blinds and shutters closed after sunset.
No torches.
No chickens, no goats, no pigs, no cows, no cats and no dogs.
NO FIRES.
Connie looked at the list. How Fitzpayne had got around the dog Rule for Pippin she couldn’t imagine, but Teddy was keeping his pet firmly in its bamboo basket strapped to his body during the day, and only allowed him a run at night. Connie had to admit that all the Rules made sense – to prevent discovery by the outside world. But the severity of the retribution made her nervous. These were men who possessed an iron in their souls that she had never encountered before among the soft-fleshed colonials. It made her look at Fitzpayne more cautiously, knowing he was one of them.
The newcomers were marched into the Kennel as soon as it grew dark on the first evening, and made to stand against a wall in front of a line of ten men, as grim-faced as a firing squad. The large room was smoky and hot from two cooking fires that burned brightly at each end, hovered over by a group of older women in dark headscarves. Between them, the intervening space was crowded with men, curious to inspect the Europeans.
The smell of fish stew hung thick in the air and made Pippin drool down Teddy’s naked chest. He was standing upright, his head as high as a seven-year-old’s could be, and Connie was proud of her son’s courage. She didn’t take his hand, aware that he had chosen to stand between Johnnie and Henry, to be one of the men.
‘No fire. No fire.’
It was the fourth time the man had said it. He was a lean and wiry Mawken, with dark skin and rimless spectacles perched on his broad nose. He wore a brown shirt over a straight black skirt that came to his ankles, and he stood in front of his ten men with his chest puffed out, as self-important as a general in front of his troops.
‘I am Badan,’ he thumped his chest. ‘I say no fire. His black eyes narrowed as he inspected each one of them at his leisure. When satisfied, he pointed a finger at Connie. ‘You understand?’
‘Yes.’
‘You light fire, you die.’
‘It’s a bit harsh,’ Johnnie commented mildly.
‘That’s the Rule!’
Beside Connie, Maya squirmed and clutched Razak’s hand. He was regarding the line of men with keen interest. Connie glanced around and spotted Fitzpayne through the smoke slouched against a wall, with a glass of something in one hand and a cigarette in the other. He was watching her carefully. She inclined her head to him, and he responded by raising his glass to her.
The bespectacled man, Badan, suddenly stepped closer, too close. Connie’s heart bolted to her throat but he didn’t come for her, he came for Maya. He took a handful of her long black hair in his fist, making the girl whimper. He yanked her forward, and there was a murmur of approval in the room.
‘You,’ he spat at her. ‘You lit fire in hut.’
Maya’s eyes grew huge. ‘Tidak! No!’ Her small hands entwined around his arm, beseeching him. ‘Let me go.’ She tried to sink to her knees, but he held her up on her feet.
‘You lit fire. You cook water in hut.’ He dragged her to the centre of the room and glanced up to where a thick, greasy rope was looped around a roof beam overhead.
‘Tidak!’ she screamed. ‘No!’
‘No, stop it!’ Connie shouted and darted forward. She seized Maya’s wrist. ‘She did not light a fire. It was only a tiny oil stove that we brought with us, a small single flame to heat water, no real cooking. She made a cup of tea, that’s all.’ The tea had been for Johnnie. ‘Leave her alone.’
‘She hang,’ Badan stated. It was said to the men in the room.
Connie could smell their hunger for the girl, more overpowering than the stink of the fish stew. Their murmurs sounded like the growls of wolves, striking terror into Maya’s young heart. Connie felt a wave of fury so fierce it made her hands to shake. Badan saw it and smiled with satisfaction because he took it for fear. Already someone was reaching up with a pole and unhooking the rope.
‘Mr Badan,’ Connie said, carefully emptying her voice of the anger, ‘be reasonable. None of us knew of the fire Rule then. It was a mistake for which we – and Maya – are deeply sorry. It will not happen again, I promise you. It was just to make a cup of tea on the little stove that we brought in our box of provisions.’
She turned her attention to the line of ten men.
‘I have whisky in my provisions box,’ she announced, and smiled at them.
One man wearing a dark green bandana stepped forward, breaking ranks. ‘How much whisky?’
‘Only one bottle. But it’s good Scottish …’
Out of the corner of her eye she saw Badan take hold of the rope. On the end was a noose.
‘And these,’ Connie said loudly.
Her hands went to her throat, and detached the string of pearls that she always wore round her neck to keep them safe. She trailed them through her fingers so that they clicked gently and caught the light, glinting like milky stars.
‘They will buy you whisky for all.’ She turned to Maya, took her trembling hand and slowly poured the pearls into it. ‘Maya would like you to have them as an apology for her actions.’
Maya stook rigid, teeth chattering.
‘Nod to them,’ Connie muttered.
Maya nodded.
‘Say sorry,’ Connie urged.
‘Sorry.’ The word was the croak of a tree frog.
Connie saw the men’s eyes fix on the set of perfectly matched pearls. ‘Agreed?’ She smiled at the faces, her pulse so loud in her ears she couldn’t hear their words, but saw their lips moving and their heads nodding. She drew Maya towards her.
Badan snatched her back. ‘She broke Rule,’ he shouted, and slipped the noose over the girl’s neck.
Razak started to shout something urgent in Malay, but it was Johnnie Blake who stepped forward with an air of reasonableness and said pleasantly, ‘Look, old chap, I know your Rules are important. You have to make sure any passing aircraft or boat doesn’t spot smoke on the island, but the poor girl didn’t know
that she wasn’t allowed to light a measly stove.’ He spread his smile to include the other men. ‘Let’s be fair about this. She was just making me a cup of tea.’
Badan tightened the noose and Maya screamed. The air seemed to thicken, and there rose a strange sound that resonated in Connie’s head. It came from the crowd of men, shuffling their feet up and down on the dusty floorboards, and even the group of children huddled in a far corner had stopped their play and risen from their knees to do the same. She had no idea what it meant, but it felt bad.
‘Stop it, you fools.’
It was Fitzpayne speaking. He sauntered across the room, as though the matter was of no great moment. He was wearing a dirty shirt, a strip of soiled cloth wound around his head, so that he looked more like one of them, an island pirate, than the skipper of The White Pearl.
With an easy grin to the ten men, he said, ‘But I have ten crates of whisky aboard the Burung Camar, just ready and waiting for a buyer.’
‘Where’s it from?’ someone shouted. ‘We don’t want monkey piss.’
‘No, it’s from a white man’s cellar. He was stupid enough to take it away with him on his fine schooner on the Indian Ocean and …’ his grin widened, ‘I decided to relieve him of the burden of it out of the kindness of my heart, to enable his yacht to sail away faster from the Japs.’
Someone laughed. Someone else shouted, ‘I want to see the girl hang.’
A rumble of dispute rippled around the room. Badan gripped the girl tighter. ‘She hangs.’
‘Very well,’ Fitzpayne said, unconcerned, and lit himself a cigarette. ‘You choose.’
He flicked a glance at Connie and the pearls, then walked over to the wall, picked up a purpose-built wooden box lying there and dumped it under the roof beam where the rope was attached.
‘Go ahead. Don’t let me spoil your fun,’ he said. ‘But ten crates of whisky would entertain you all night instead of for five minutes.’
Connie immediately moved closer to the pirate in spectacles, removed the string of pearls from Maya and slipped them around his arm, fastening the gold catch so that they hung like a loose bracelet on the hand that clutched Maya’s hair. A moment of silence took the room by the throat.
The White Pearl Page 39