by Joan Druett
ROBBER CRABS
A Wiki Coffin story
“It was lust for coconuts what started off that mutiny,” said the boy from Ohio. He turned and scowled at Wiki Coffin. “Did’st ye know about them coconuts?”
Wiki took a while to answer, because he was so startled. Up to this moment he had been trailing behind, braced to defend himself against a murderous assault and dreading the moment, but instead of picking a fight, the boy from Ohio had asked this strange question. Coconuts? Why coconuts? Their Sydney-bound ship, the American trader Rinto, was loaded to the gunwales with the sacks of coconuts that Captain O’Malley had picked up in Timor, but still the query didn’t make sense.
Shipping on the Rinto had been a very last-minute affair. After six mostly contented months of sailing on ramshackle native brigs and schooners, Wiki had contemplated making Singapore his base, with just the occasional foray into the Pacific. Not only had he become fond of the local diet of fish and meat and vegetables cooked seven different ways, but he had acquired a large enough vocabulary of seamanlike Bahasa to enjoy the cheerful company of Bugis shipmates, and admire the stoic way they accepted the discomforts and dangers of their rickety old craft.
Then, however, George Rochester had arrived on the United States frigate Potomac — a memorial occasion, and not just because it had been the first visit of a United States man-of-war in the history of Singapore. It had been wonderful to be able to spend time with his old friend from college, but because George had given him that twice-damned dog the day he had left, Wiki had been forced to change his mind about staying in the South China Sea. He had shipped out on the first craft offering, which was the American trader Rinto for the passage to Port Jackson — and he had been regretting it ever since.
For Wiki, being sent alone with the boy from Ohio into the jungle hinterland of this very odd little island was the latest low point of a very unpleasant voyage. This was only the sixth day out from Singapore, but he had long since realized that his decision to quit coastering in the South China Sea was a very bad one, and Hank — which was the Ohio boy’s real name — was a major reason for this. Hank was just Wiki’s own age, which was about nineteen, so by logic they should have been compatible shipmates. However, Wiki’s arrival in the forecastle of the Rinto had meant that Hank was no longer the most junior member of the crew, and the boy from Ohio had jumped at the chance to bully someone the way that he had been bullied up till then.
No sooner had Wiki dropped his duds on one of the wooden berths than Hank had muscled up and started issuing orders, his bullet head hunched between meaty shoulders. Wiki had bided his time, keeping his mouth shut while he sized Hank up — which was lucky, as he had soon learned that the boy from Ohio had begun his sailing career on the Great Lakes, which bred the hardest seamen on the globe. Hank, he knew, had been taking stock of him, too, as whalemen had their own formidable reputation. Accordingly, as Wiki trudged through the mud, and climbed rocks, and threaded through great tree trunks in the midst of an eerie isolation, he had been waiting for Hank to pick the fight that would settle matters once and for all.
But instead, this conversation had commenced. Now, he stopped and studied Hank warily as he said, “What mutiny?”
“That infamous mutiny on that English ship Bounty, the one what was sent to Tahiti after breadfruit and coconuts.”
Hank clambered over a heap of black rocks to a shallow pool in the middle. Once he was at the edge, he leaned over and plucked up a purple-spotted green crab, using both hands because it was so big. Then he came over with the crab held out before him, and poked it into the mouth of the canvas bag that Wiki held open.
It was a tricky job, as the crab’s carapace was the size of a dinner plate, and its mouthparts snapped like scissors as it fought against the indignity. Wiki managed to keep his fingers clear, but Hank swore as the creature got in a nasty nip. Then at last the crab was inside, with just the tip of one claw sticking out.
Hank gave the bag a good shake to settle the creature, and after the claw had reluctantly withdrawn he said, “I guess you’ve never heard of how those men seized the ship on account of the coconuts, and I guess you’ve never heard afore of that infamous mutiny.”
“But indeed I have heard of the mutiny on the Bounty,” said Wiki, who had read several different versions of the story. He wondered how Hank had learned about it, as he was certain the boy from Ohio didn’t know how to read, but kept that to himself.
Instead, he said, “But I didn’t know about the coconuts. I thought the men mutinied because they were in love with the charms of the beautiful Tahitian girls, and wished to return to their soft caressing arms.”
“Nope, it weren’t girls. It was coconuts.”
“Good heavens,” said Wiki. He didn’t believe him for an instant, but wasn’t willing to turn it into an excuse for the unwanted fight.
“The captain, the infamous captain what was named William Bligh, he took on a load of coconuts at Tahiti, just like our captain did at Timor, and when he found that his crew was stealing them, he went just about crazy, just as Captain O’Malley would if he found us stealing his cargo. It was officers and all,” Hank added. “Or so they told me.”
“The men who stole the coconuts?”
“Aye. One was called Christian, name Fletcher, and because that captain hollered at him so scandalous and nasty, he, Fletcher Christian, he took it into his mind to seize the ship. He turned pirate,” Hank elaborated. “And so did much of the rest.”
“And cast Captain Bligh adrift,” said Wiki, who felt a great admiration for the much maligned Captain Bligh. Having sailed the Spice Islands over the last six months, he had a good idea what kind of challenge Bligh had faced when he navigated his small boat from Tonga to Timor.
“Turned pirate, did that Fletcher Christian, and so did they all, those men what seized the ship. And it was a pirate what discovered this here island first, or so they tells me. Only I believe it was already named Christmas when he found it.”
“Good lord,” said Wiki, highly impressed by this stream of information, though he wondered who had named the island, if its discoverer hadn’t done the job. Then he turned to study their surroundings with new interest.
He had viewed many exotic sights since he had jumped ship at Ternate in the South China Sea, but it had taken only a few moments on shore for him to decide that Christmas Island was the strangest place yet. An old volcano that stuck abruptly out of the Indian Ocean just south of Java, the island was covered in tall trees and nothing but tall trees, with no undergrowth whatsoever. While this emptiness between the bare trunks made it relatively easy to clamber around in the forest, with just rocks and mud and brightly colored crabs to impede his way, it was also very uncanny.
Shafts of light struck down from between the distant tree-tops, and glittered on the pools of water, the wet rocks, and the mud. The forest smelled of mud, bird dung, fresh air, and fresh water, with no trace of the warm stench of rot and rampant growth that Wiki associated with jungles in the South China Sea. Nor were there the usual clouds of small insects. Large white birds flickered among the branches, and every now and then let out a raucous caw, but the only life on the ground was masses of differently colored crabs, which crept out of holes and cracks in the rocks, and sidled through the mud.
In the distance, a invisible waterfall filled the air with its hissing, and as the crabs crawled around they hissed, too, Wiki noticed. It was a soft sound, but a lot more menacing than the noise of falling water. There were many, many blue crabs and red crabs, which were the usual size for crabs, and which lived in holes in the ground like regular crabs, too, and then there were the huge robber crabs, the ones that Captain O’Malley had sent them to collect.
Bringing his mind back to the conversation, he asked Hank, “Which pirate found this island?” The one that was already named, he thought.
“Dampier, he was. Dampier, William. Sailed with pirates, he did, so he must’ve been a pir
ate, too. They tells me that he came here with his men and gathered up robber crabs, just like us. He wrote about it in his journal.”
That, thought Wiki, was a long time ago, because he had read Dampier’s book, too. The way he remembered it, Dampier had hated his ship as much as Wiki hated the Rinto. He would have been better to jump ship, in Wiki’s considered opinion, because he had made his dislike so obvious that his captain had marooned him on one of the many islands in the East Indies. Dampier had been forced to escape in a native canoe before he finally made his way to England, where his journal made him famous.
Since Dampier’s time, it seemed that Christmas Island had only been visited by passersby like the crew of the Rinto, making a break in their journey to collect giant robber crabs. Wiki looked around again, wondering about other animals and remembering an island in the South China Sea called Komodo, which was another rock standing out of the sea, but one that was quite a contrast to this place, being dry and brown and barren. Komodo was supposed to be haunted with great man-eating lizards. According to what a Bugis bo’sun had told him, they crept up on people and bit them in the buttocks, and then followed them around, waiting for the poison to take effect. Like some of the man-made poisons