Storm Boy

by Colin Thiele

  Before long, Storm Boy, Fingerbone and Hide-Away had hauled the end of the big rope ashore. Then they dragged it quickly up the sandhills to the Lookout Post, where Hide-Away wound it firmly round and round the butt. Meanwhile the crew had fastened their end and had hitched a rough kind of bosun’s chair to the rope. A man lashed himself in, and signalled to Hide-Away to start pulling on the thin rope. The rescue was ready to start.

  The sea sprang and snatched at the man on the rope like a beast with white teeth. Sometimes, where the rope sagged lowest, the waves swept him right under. Storm Boy could feel the shock and shudder of the line as the water thundered round it. But the man managed to snatch a breath between waves and he always rose up safely again on the rope. Hide-Away and Fingerbone pulled until their feet dug deep into the sand, and the muscles that stood out on their arms looked like the rope they were pulling. And so at last they were able to haul the man through the thud and tug of the sea to the shore, where he unfastened himself and dropped down onto the sand of the beach. He was shivering and exhausted, but he was safe. Storm Boy ran down to help him up to the humpy.

  Meanwhile the rest of the crew had hauled the rough bosun’s chair back to the ship and another man was ready to be pulled ashore. After him came a third, who staggered feebly up the beach.

  ‘Hurry!’ he said. ‘The boat’s breaking up and there are still three men on board.’

  Hide-Away’s forehead was wet, and Fingerbone puffed as they dug their feet in the sand and hauled.

  ‘Hurry!’ they kept panting. ‘The boat’s breaking up.’

  At last they had five men safely on shore and there was only the captain to come. Then he, too, left the ship and they hauled again. He was a big man who weighed down the rope, and Hide-Away and Fingerbone were almost exhausted. Suddenly the rope grew taut, shuddered, and slackened.

  ‘Quick!’ Hide-Away cried. ‘She’s shifting.’

  Storm Boy seized the pulling rope and hauled.

  ‘Hurry!’ yelled the captain. ‘She’s going.’

  One or two of the crewmen who could still walk grabbed the line and helped to pull. Between them all they slowly hauled the captain ashore and dragged him, pale and half-drowned, onto the beach.

  ‘Saved!’ he kept saying weakly. ‘Saved by a miracle and a pelican.’

  Hide-Away and Storm Boy kept the captain and his five crewmen in the humpy for a day. They gave them hot food and dried out their clothes. Next morning the storm began to clear and the sun flashed across the Coorong, so Hide-Away began preparing to sail the six of them up to Goolwa.

  Before they left, the captain took Hide-Away aside.

  ‘You saved our lives,’ he said, ‘you and your black friend, and especially the boy and the bird. We want to do something in return.’

  Hide-Away was embarrassed. ‘No need to worry about that,’ he said.

  ‘But we’ve talked it over,’ said the captain, ‘and we’ve decided. We’d like to pay for the boy to go to school—to boarding school in Adelaide.’

  Hide-Away was sad. ‘He’d be very lonely, and so would I. His heart would be sick for the wind and the waves, and especially for Mr Percival.’

  ‘No matter,’ the captain said. ‘He’s ten, or is it eleven? Soon he’ll be grown up, and yet he won’t be able to read or write. It’s not right to stop him.’

  Hide-Away hung his head. ‘Yes, you’re right, he ought to go.’

  But when they called Storm Boy and told him the captain’s plan, he wouldn’t go. ‘No!’ he said horrified. ‘I won’t leave Mr Percival! I won’t!’

  ‘But Storm Boy.’

  ‘Not unless I’m allowed to take Mr Percival to school with me.’

  ‘You know you couldn’t do that!’

  ‘Then I won’t go.’

  The captain shrugged. ‘Very well,’ he said to Hide-Away, ‘later perhaps. There’ll always be a place ready for him.’ Then he said goodbye and scratched Mr Percival’s neck. ‘You’re a big, wonderful bird,’ he said. He looked up at Hide-Away. ‘When he dies you must send him to the museum; we’ll put a label on the case: The pelican that saved six men’s lives.’

  Hide-Away looked round quickly. He was glad Storm Boy hadn’t heard the captain’s words.

  F OR THE REST OF THE YEAR everyone was happy. The storms went back to the cold south, the sun warmed the sandhills, and spring ran over the countryside with new leaves and little bush buds.

  Before long the open season for duck shooting came round again. All along the Coorong the shooters went, the blast of their guns echoing up and down the water, and the stench of their gunpowder hanging on the still air like a black fog of rotting smoke. The mornings were filled with the cries and screams of birds. Sometimes Storm Boy could see the birds falling, or struggling westward, wounded and maimed, towards the shelter of the sanctuary.

  From the start, Mr Percival hated the shooters. He harried them whenever he could. Sometimes he just sat staring at them rudely until they grew impatient and chased him away. Sometimes he swam annoyingly near their hidden boats until they splashed or made a noise. But most of all he flew round and round their hiding places in wide circles like a cumbersome old aeroplane on patrol. And all of it was to help the ducks, to warn them in time, to keep them away from the shooters, so that the terrible guns would roar less often, and kill less often still.

  Before long the ducks understood Mr Percival’s warnings, and kept away. The shooters grew angrier and angrier.

  ‘It’s that confounded, pot-bellied old pelican again,’ they’d say. ‘He’s worse than a seal in a fish net.’

  ‘He’s like a spy in the sky,’ said one. ‘We’ll never shoot any ducks while he’s about.’

  And so it went on until one terrible morning in February. Storm Boy was standing high on the ridge of a sandhill watching the sun slip up from the sea like a blazing penny. He turned to look inland, and there behind a bending boobyalla bush near the Coorong he saw two shooters crouching. They were very still, waiting for six ducks out on the water to swim a little nearer. Just then Mr Percival came sweeping round in his ponderous flight. He swung in low over the hiding men, and the ducks gave a sudden cry of alarm, flapped strongly, and flew off very fast and low over the water.

  The men shouted with rage. One of them leapt out, swung up his gun, and aimed at Mr Percival. Storm Boy saw him and gave a great cry.

  ‘Don’t! Don’t shoot! It’s Mr Perc—’

  His voice was drowned by the roar of the gun. Mr Percival seemed to shudder in flight as if he’d flown into a wall of glass. Then he started to fall heavily and awkwardly to the ground. Storm Boy ran headlong towards the spot, tripping, falling over tussocks, stumbling into hollows, jumping up, racing, panting, crying out, his breath gulping in big sobs, his heart pumping wildly.

  ‘Mr Percival! They’ve shot Mr Percival!’ he kept screaming. ‘Mr Percival! Mr Percival!’

  Poor Mr Percival! When Storm Boy reached him he was trying to stand up and walk, but he fell forwards helplessly with one wing splayed out. Blood was moistening his white chest feathers, and he was panting as if he’d just played a hard game.

  ‘Mr Percival! Oh, Mr Percival!’ It was all Storm Boy could say. He kept on repeating it over and over again as he picked him up slowly and gently and then ran all the way back to the humpy.

  Hide-Away was getting the breakfast when Storm Boy burst in, sobbing.

  ‘Mr Percival! They’ve shot Mr Percival!’

  Hide-Away sprang round, startled, threw down the spoon he was using, and ran out to find the shooters. But they’d already gone. Ashamed and afraid, they’d quickly crossed to the other side of the Coorong, and driven off.

  Hide-Away came back angrily. Then he took Mr Percival gently from Storm Boy and examined him—wiped his chest and straightened the shattered feathers of his wing. Mr Percival snackered his beak weakly and panted rapidly.

  ‘Will he…will Mr Percival…be all right?’ Storm Boy could hardly get the words out.

  Hi
de-Away handed the wounded bird back to him silently and looked out through the doorway towards the far track where the shooters had disappeared. He couldn’t bring himself to say anything.

  All day long Storm Boy held Mr Percival in his arms. In front of the rough iron stove where long ago he had first nursed the little bruised pelican into life, he now sat motionless and silent. Fingerbone tried to cheer him up, and Hide-Away offered him breakfast and dinner, but Storm Boy shook his head and sat on, numb and silent. Now and then he smoothed the feathers where they were matted and stuck together, or straightened the useless wing. But in his heart he knew what was happening. Mr Percival’s breathing was shallow and quick, his body and neck were drooping, and for long stretches at a time his eyes were shut. Then, suddenly, they would snap open again, clear and bright, and he would snacker his beak softly in a kind of sad, weak smile, before dozing off again.

  ‘Mr Percival,’ Storm Boy whispered, ‘you’re the best, best friend I ever had.’

  Teatime came, the sun dipped down, and long shadows began to move up from the hollows. For a while the tops of the high sandhills glowed golden in the evening light, but then they faded too and it was dark. Hide-Away didn’t light the lantern. Instead, the three of them stayed on in front of the little fireplace—Hide-Away, Storm Boy, and Mr Percival—while darkness filled the humpy and the stars came out as clear and pure as ice.

  And at nine o’clock Mr Percival died.

  Only then did Hide-Away move. He got up softly, and, gently, very gently, took Mr Percival from Storm Boy. And Storm Boy gave him up. Then at last he flung himself down on his bunk and sobbed softly to himself, hour after hour, until Hide-Away came over and put a hand on his shoulder.

  ‘It’s right that you should cry for Mr Percival for a while,’ he said, kindly and firmly, ‘but don’t keep on brooding, Storm Boy.’

  ‘B—But why did they shoot Mr…Mr Percival? He wasn—wasn’t hurting anyone; jus—just warning the ducks like always.’

  ‘In the world,’ Hide-Away said sadly, ‘there will always be men who are cruel, just as there will always be men who are lazy or stupid or wise or kind. Today you’ve seen what cruel and stupid men can do.’

  He pulled a blanket over Storm Boy and said quietly, ‘Now try to get some sleep.’

  But Storm Boy didn’t sleep. All night he lay clutching his cold wet pillow.

  In the morning Hide-Away spoke to Storm Boy.

  ‘The sailors will arrange to have Mr Percival put in the museum,’ he said, ‘with a notice saying how he saved their lives—and how he lost his. Would you like that?’

  Storm Boy shook his head. ‘Mr Percival wouldn’t have liked that,’ he said; ‘not to be shut up in a glass case for people to stare at. Never!’

  And he took the spade and climbed to the top of the big sandhill by the Lookout Post.

  ‘Mr Percival would want to be buried here,’ he said, ‘by the foot of the Lookout. This is his place for ever.’ And he began to dig.

  Hide-Away nodded. Then he took a shovel and went up to dig too.

  And so they buried Mr Percival deep beside the Lookout Post on top of the golden sandhill, with the beach below, and the shining sand and the salt smack of the sea there day and night—and all around was the wide sky, and the tang of the open air, and the wild lonely wind in the scrub. When they’d finished, Storm Boy stood for a long time looking silently all around him. Then he turned to Hide-Away.

  ‘All right,’ he said, ‘I’m ready to go now if you like.’

  ‘Go? Where to?’

  ‘To school! Like the sailors said.’

  ‘Oh! Oh, yes…Very well, then.’

  Hide-Away knew then that without Mr Percival Storm Boy wouldn’t be able to live there; at least not for a while.

  Together they walked slowly down the sandhill to the humpy.

  ‘We’ll leave the boat in Goolwa for a few days,’ Hide-Away said. ‘I’ll have to go up to Adelaide with you to get you settled in.’

  And that was how Storm Boy went to school. Hide-Away came back to the humpy by the Coorong to start the long, long wait for the school holidays. You can see him there now. By day, Fingerbone sometimes comes to talk to him, but at night he stands alone beside the Lookout Post and gazes out at the sea and the clouds of the western storms; and, a hundred miles away in Adelaide, Storm Boy sits by the boarding school window and looks out at the tossing trees and the windy sky.

  And everything lives on in their hearts—the wind-talk and wave-talk, and the scribblings on the sand; the Coorong; the salt smell of the beach; the humpy; and the long days of their happiness together. And always, above them, in their mind’s eye, they can see the shape of two big wings in the storm clouds and the flying scud—two wings of white with trailing black edges—spread across the sky.

  For birds like Mr Percival do not really die.