‘Grab the rail, you bloody woman!’
Somehow Rachel closed her fingers around one of the rails. She gripped the gunwale with the other and dragged herself back aboard, and as the Shamrock rolled, she fell hard onto the deck, crying out as her head smashed against a stanchion. She crawled back to the cockpit, and lay gasping in the bilge, choking seawater through her mouth and nose.
*****
They were between the heads now, and the seas were calmer. The Shamrock limped between the reefs into Vancoro harbour.
Rachel struggled to her feet. A fine salt spray blanketed the headland in white gauze, and through it she could make out the tiny settlement of Vancoro.
‘Thank God,’ she murmured. She had to grip onto the rail for support. She looked around at Corrigan. He was grinning.
‘Well, lady, you really got your two quids' worth, didn't you?’
*****
The next day Rachel lay in bed in a long white cotton nightgown, fanning herself with a handkerchief. Her uncle sat on the bed beside her, his high forehead creased into a frown. He was yet to satisfy himself that his niece's virtue remained intact; a condition he prized almost as highly as the early Christian fathers.
The cyclone had swept on towards the south-east; today the islands reposed once more in the tropic sun, as if the big wind had never been.
It was sticky hot, the air as thick and suffocating as warm treacle.
‘You mean to say you were alone with him - all that time - and he never once tried to lay a hand on you?’
Rachel shook her head. It was a white lie, or so she told herself; although Corrigan had tried, he had not succeeded. Well, not for more than a fleeting second, anyway.
‘Let the Lord be praised,’ Father Goode muttered and dabbed ineffectually with a handkerchief at the beads of perspiration on his neck and cheeks.
‘Amen.’
‘I must say, Rachel, I find your actions ill-advised to say the least. I think you have tested the mercy of the Lord most unreasonably.’
Rachel took the rebuke stoically. ‘Yes, Uncle Matthew,’ she said.
‘I shudder to think what could have happened,’ he said, encouraged by his niece's contrition. ‘Mister Manning was convinced you had been murdered.’ He patted her hand gently, satisfied that he had impressed on her the magnitude of her folly. ‘I know you did what you thought was best, and in good faith. But you fail to appreciate what sort of man Mister Corrigan is.’
‘Oh, but Uncle, I think you've misjudged him.’
Father Goode raised an eyebrow, surprised by the vehemence of her reply. ‘Mister Corrigan is a disgrace to the civilized community on this island and an abomination before God,’ he said, reciting his personal catechism.
‘Oh, I know he has his faults,’ Rachel said mildly, while her uncle shook his head in shock at this understatement, ‘but deep down he is a good man. An uncut diamond.’ Rachel sat up in bed, her green eyes shining with sudden fervor. ‘If only you could have seen him during the storm! He saved my life. He was . . . magnificent.’
She realized what she had said and blushed crimson. Her uncle shifted uncomfortably on the edge of the bed. His niece's faith in the inherent good of this man was disturbing.
‘Your experience certainly seems to have left a deep impression on you.’ His niece had changed somehow. In what way, he couldn't be sure; but her eyes were shining somehow brighter, and there was a certain lightness of spirit that had not been there before. It was a bad sign. He would have to question her further.
But at that moment the door burst open and Lelei burst in, her eyes wide.
‘Lelei?’ Father Goode said. ‘Whatever's wrong, girl?’
‘Mastah, better come quick.’
‘What is it?’
‘Mastah Corrigan. Woman b'long im she killim bad!’
Father Goode was on his feet in a moment and rushed to the mission steps. ‘Oh, my goodness,’ he said, uttering the strongest oath that came to his mind.
Patrick Corrigan lay face down on the veranda. He was groaning in a pool of his own blood.
Chapter 10
The knife had entered Corrigan's arm just below the shoulder joint, glancing off the bone and embedding in the thick band of triceps muscle. It was an ugly gaping wound two or three inches across and the flow of blood made it seem even worse. Fortunately for Corrigan, no arteries or tendons had been severed.
Father Goode and Lelei dragged him into the Mission's medical room,where the priest cleaned the wound, injected a local anaesthetic, and began to stitch the ragged edges of skin and muscle together.
‘How did this happen, Mister Corrigan?’
‘None of your damned business.’
‘If you wanted it to be none of my business you shouldn't have come here for my help.’
Corrigan grunted, lying face down on the table, his head cradled in the crook of his right arm. Finally he said: ‘It was Sanei.’
‘A woman did this?’
‘Little bitch. I'll tan her ass when I find her.’
‘But why would she take a knife to you?’
‘She reckons I’m a sinner, same as you do. Only she’s not as patient as you are about seeing me go to Hell.’
Father Goode shook his head. He couldn't understand what good his niece could see in the man. He smelled like a wine vat. Still, he thought, the Lord rejoices more over one sinner who returns to the fold than ninety-nine others who haven't strayed away. It was his duty to try and save him. After all, he would never have a better opportunity.
‘Mister Corrigan. Have you ever thought of returning to the Christian faith?’
‘No.’
‘I take it you know of Heaven and Hell?’
‘You've mentioned them to me before.’
‘Which place would you rather be?’
‘I'd rather be in Heaven than in Hell.’
Father Goode beamed. Now they were getting somewhere. ‘Ah, but you must be a Christian before you can get into Heaven.’
‘Is that so?’
‘'If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.'‘
‘That's the Gospel of Matthew, isn't it?’
Father Goode stared at Corrigan in astonishment. ‘Mister Corrigan. I didn't know you knew the Bible.’
‘I had the Good bloody Book rammed down my throat for seventeen years. My father was a very religious man.’
‘Then you must surely understand how important it is to live a Christian life. It is the very pathway to Heaven.’
‘Look, I know the pathway to Heaven. And I wish I had a glass of it right now.’
Father Goode cut the last of his stitches and moved to stand in front of Corrigan. It frustrated him immensely that other men could not understand the basic mathematics of life. ‘Strong drink is not the answer, Mister Corrigan.’
‘That depends on the question.’
‘Do you believe in Hell, Mister Corrigan?’
‘Oh yeah, I believe in Hell all right. I reckon I know more about it than anyone alive. Better than anyone who listens to you spouting your crap every Sunday, anyway.’
The priest swayed slightly on his feet. The blasphemy reverberated in his ears like a blast. ‘Mister Corrigan!’
‘All you lot are the same. You talk about suffering but you don't seem to do a lot of it.’
‘Jesus suffered on the cross!’
‘Only for nine hours.’
‘That's a blasphemy, Mister Corrigan!’ he said, close to tears.
‘Look, I reckon the natives have got the right idea. They say a man's led a good life if he obeys his chief, respects his elders, and looks after his own. It doesn't need all your palaver to make a good man any better. And if he's not any good, he deserves all that's coming to him, in my opinion.’
‘The power of God can absolve all sins.’
‘That's what my old man used to say. He'd come back from the church, all his sins forgiven, and lay into us with the belt agai
n. He was a bastard, and no amount of praying and preaching ever changed that.’
Father Goode shook his head. ‘Mister Corrigan, you are damned for all time!’
Corrigan stood up. ‘You're probably right. In fact I know you are. And to tell you the truth, Father Goode, I reckon that's the way it ought to be.’
‘But Jesus loves you!’
‘Then He's a bloody fool.’
Father Goode's lower lip trembled. He turned on his heel and hurried out through the French windows and onto the veranda to compose himself.
Corrigan heard the rustle of cloth behind him. A voice said; ‘You must forgive my uncle. He is highly strung.’
Corrigan turned around. It was Rachel. She was wearing a long white frock, and her long black hair, instead of being tied in a bun at the back of her head, fell around her shoulders. Corrigan thought he could detect perfume.
‘How long have you been standing there?’
‘I was worried. I thought you might be badly hurt.’
Corrigan picked up his blood-soaked shirt from the floor. He reached into his pocket and threw two one pound notes on to the bench. ‘I'm all right. Here, better give old Blood and Thunder this. Didn't expect him to fix me up for nothing.’
Rachel stared at the two crumpled notes. She recognized them. ‘But this is too much money.’
‘Well fair’s fair. I charged you too much to go to Marmari.’
Rachel looked at the heavy bandage on his shoulder. ‘What happened?’
‘Sanei. Damned woman took to me with a knife. Wait till I find her. I'll give her a hiding she won't forget.’
‘But why did she do it?’
‘Because of you.’
‘Me?’
‘Doesn't mind me carrying on with any of the local girls but I suppose she figured you were a threat.’
‘Me?’ Rachel blushed. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Better ask her. It's a bloody silly notion, but that's women for you.’ Corrigan stamped out and Rachel stood there and listened as his footsteps clattered on the wooden steps and were gone.
Father Goode came back into the room. ‘That man is damned for all time to the fires of Hell,’ he said. ‘And my sympathy for the Devil.’
‘You're wrong,’ Rachel said.
Father Goode looked at his niece, astounded. Two fat tears trickled down her cheeks. ‘Rachel? What's wrong?’
‘Nothing, nothing is wrong! Everything is just the same as it always is!’ She turned and left the room.
*****
Ian Manning took out his binoculars and surveyed the glittering blue waters of White Bone Bay and the fifty miles of shimmering ocean to Cape Tavu. The recent storm had swept away the thick cloud that usually covered the distant islands.
Manning was perched high in the trunk of a banyan tree. Roots hung down from the branches to the ground in grotesque profusion, some as thick as the trunk of a sapling. Manning wrapped one arm around the limb of the tree, held the binoculars to his eyes with the other.
‘This will do,’ he muttered to himself, ‘this will do nicely.’
He had selected sites with exaggerated care. If he ever needed to use them, he knew his life would depend upon the judgments he made now.
He had begun to shift stores to secret caches in the hills; tinned food, rice, kerosene, trade goods, drums of benzene and even a case of whisky. He and his native police would be able to survive for months - and perhaps indefinitely, with a little help from the natives.
Manning shinned back down the tree. He was enveloped once more in the gloomy miasma of the jungle. He sank to his haunches, wheezing from the effort, but his mind now fully absorbed with his plans. Rivulets of sweat poured down his face.
From here he had uninterrupted views of The Slot, the narrow deep-water channel between the Solomons. If the Japanese came, this was the highway they would use to push their war machine on to Australia and New Zealand.
The path here led along a streambed of bare rock that would leave no tell-tale footprints. The clearing itself was steamy and dark; it would aggravate his bronchial complaints, of course, but it was the price he would have to pay. He would be invisible from the air, hidden under the green canopy of the jungle.
The clearing was surrounded by twisting lianas, white orchids and dim creeper-strewn passages. If the Japanese came looking for him - and Manning didn't doubt that they would - they would have to walk right into the clearing before they found him.
It all seemed unreal. After all, Singapore stood in the way of the Japanese, with eighty thousand British troops and guns. It was surely the rock on which the tide of the Japanese advance would break.
But if it didn't, Ian McLaren Manning would at last prove his worth to Mother England. He would not let her down. He had waited too long a time for the opportunity.
*****
The Chinatown in Vancoro consisted of a few flimsy wooden shacks clustered around the coral jetties that led out to the deep water. A few schooners were anchored at the end of the piers, their holds crammed with trochus shell and copra.
There was a ramshackle huddle of shophouses, filled with cheap lamps, fish hooks, beads, pipes and gaudily labeled tinned food. From inside them came the sibilant clatter of abacus counters as the Chinese bartered and squabbled and gambled at fan tan.
Europeans came to the Chinatown for just two things; to bargain with the gaggle of Chinese in their too-long shorts and dirty white vests, or to drink at Sam Doo's Drinking Palace.
Sam Doo owned one of the stores near the piers, a corrugated iron building with a green tin roof. It was always cool inside. At the far end of the shed, past a tangle of ships' gear, coiled rope and galvanised anchors, was a rickety table and chairs where Sam Doo tended bar.
The walls were covered with dusty whisky advertisements and some gaudy prints of scantily dressed girls. There was also Sam's collection of island trophies; clubs, shields, and stone-head axes, clam shell arm-rings as well as a chief’s insignia crafted from an intricately fretted turtle shell. Two decaying paper lanterns hung from the ceiling in gaudy splendor.
A waltz tune was playing scratchily on the gramophone. Sam Doo was immensely proud of it, it was the only record that he had. It was ‘Always’.
Sam had thin black hair and a wizened monkey face; he had a mole on the left side of his chin from which long grey hairs protruded in a straggly kind of beard. Whenever he smiled he revealed a handsome gold tooth; but not today. His good mood had evaporated when he saw Corrigan heading towards his bar. Usually he was pleased to see the big Irishman; he had a big thirst and he liked to gamble.
But he had hoped that today Corrigan would not come; not with the planter Heydrich sitting on the other side of the room, in such a boisterous mood. There was bound to be trouble. The bar wasn't much, he knew. But it was all he had, and it was the only one in Vancoro.
Wolfgang Heydrich stared at the dusty photograph of King Edward VII above the bar and raised his glass of gin in an ironic toast. He felt better than he had felt in years. It was good to finally see the English soiling their dapper white trousers as they contemplated the Japanese advance down the Malay peninsula.
In Europe his own countrymen had brought the mighty Empire to its knees, and the Wehrmacht was baying at the portals of England herself. In an expansive mood he was about to order another bottle of gin when he saw Corrigan.
He had made a number of clumsy attempts to lure Corrigan's native girl away to his own plantation at Marakon. Not only was she the most beautiful native girl on the island, but it would have been good to get one up on the bastard. He didn’t like the way he was always so lucky at cards. No man could win as regularly as he did and still be an honest player.
‘Corrigan!’ Heydrich roared, as if he was greeting a long absent friend. ‘Come and have a drink with me!’
Corrigan hesitated in the doorway, his hands thrusts deep into the pockets of his shorts. It was not midday and he was already drunk. ‘All right,’ Corrigan said, and
he tottered over.
Sam Doo groaned when he saw Heydrich get out the playing cards.
‘Just a friendly game,’ he heard Heydrich saying, ‘but we might as well make it interesting.’ And he pulled a bundle of notes from his pocket and slapped them down on the table.
*****
They had been drinking solidly for almost two hours. Sam Doo wiped glasses with a dirty cloth behind the bar, watched as Corrigan pulled some more crumpled notes from the pockets of his shorts and slapped them down on the table.
Sam Doo started putting bottles out of the way in the cupboards under the bar.
Corrigan won the next two games. But during the third game, Sam Doo started to put the glasses away as well.
Corrigan picked up his cards. He had two aces. He threw away three cards and picked up a ten, a five, and another ace. Three aces.
He picked up two one-pound notes and dropped them in the middle of the table. Heydrich smiled.
‘A good draw, Corrigan?’
‘Let's get on with the game,’ Corrigan said, slurring his words.
Sam Doo went to the other end of the bar. From there he could see Heydrich's cards. Two kings and the other ace, a nine and a three. He threw away the two low cards and drew two more from the top of the pack.
A king and another nine.
Heydrich sneezed, pulling a voluminous white handkerchief from the pocket of his cotton jacket. He made a pantomime of blowing his nose and when he replaced the handkerchief in his pocket he had a full house; the nine had been replaced by yet another ace.
It had been clumsy but Corrigan was too drunk to notice.
‘Hurry up and bet,’ Corrigan muttered.
Heydrich dropped a five-pound note on the table. ‘I guess you have a very good hand, Corrigan. But what the hell, eh?’
Corrigan sat three for a long time without moving. Finally he picked up the last of his money and dropped the notes in the middle of the table. ‘Cost you another two to see if you're right.’
Corrigan's Run Page 5