by Morris West
The billy boiled over. The steam rose in hissing clouds from the blackened coals at the edge of the fire, but neither of us moved. I tried to speak but the words were slow in coming. Shame stifled them in my throat. Johnny Akimoto sat silent, a gentle man waiting without regret for me to accept or reject him.
Then mercifully the words came. I turned to him and held out my hand.
“I’m sorry, Johnny. I’d like you to stay.”
He took my hand, his dark face split into a smile of sheer delight.
“I stay, Renboss. Better we make tea now. The girl will be awake soon and she will be hungry.”
Together we prepared a simple meal and when it was ready we carried it together down to the girl’s tent.
She was feverish again. Her face was flushed. She was soaked with sweat and she tossed and moaned and plucked at the sheet as her temperature rose and the pains racked her. She shivered violently and drew the sheet up to her neck for warmth.
I sponged her again and held her up while Johnny forced water and a couple of tablets between her chattering teeth. Then we laid her back on the pillow and made our own meal, while the shadows lengthened outside and the first stirring of the night-wind raised small eddies in the sand.
“She is worse than I thought,” said Johnny. “If the fever does not break tonight. . . . ”
He left the rest of it unsaid.
“One of us should stay with her tonight, Johnny.”
He nodded. He was pleased that I had said it.
“We should take her up to our tent, Renboss. She can use my stretcher. Then, maybe, you can get some sleep. If she needs you, you are there.”
I looked at him, curiously. I could not read what was in his mind. I questioned him.
“But what about you, Johnny? There’s no need to move out. We can both——”
“No, Renboss. I will sleep down here.”
“I don’t see what you’re driving at.”
Johnny smiled with gentle irony.
“She is young, Renboss,” he said. “She is young and sick and lonely, If she woke tonight and saw a black man bending over her, then she would be afraid.”
Johnny Akimoto’s father was a Japanese exile. His mother was a dark woman from the Gilbert Islands. Johnny himself was one of the lost people who would live without love and die without a son to succeed him. But of all the men I have ever met Johnny Akimoto was most a man.
We wrapped the girl in the sheets and carried her up to the big tent. Leaving Johnny to settle her I walked back to pick up the medicine-chest. As I bent to pick it up I noticed a small leather wallet wedged between two bottles on the folding table. I opened it.
There were a few bank-notes, some postage stamps and a letter of credit from the Commercial Banking Company. It was endorsed “Miss Patricia Mitchell”. Now at least we knew her name and the fact that she was single. I folded the paper and put it back in the wallet. The rest she could tell us herself when she recovered—if she recovered.
Johnny seemed to have his doubts about that and I didn’t care to dwell on what might happen if she died while she was in our hands: Police inquiries, a coroner’s inquest, stories in the newspapers, gossip along the coast. The secret of the Dona Lucia and the gold of the King of Spain would be a secret no longer.
The sun was going down when I left the tent: a golden ball rolling off the edge of the world into a sea of yellow and crimson ochre and royal purple. I stood and watched it disappear behind the rim of creation. I saw the brief glory of the afterglow. I watched the colours fade from the surface of the ocean and the peach-bloom brushed from the sky by the swift fingers of the night. Then I turned slowly and walked up to the tent.
The girl was still in the fever-grip and Johnny Akimoto was waiting to bid me good night.
Chapter 8
I STRIPPED down to a pair of shorts and stretched out on the camp-bed. But I could not sleep. My nerves were tight as piano-wires and I could not shut my mind to the mumblings of the sick girl on the other side of the tent, or to the steady beat of the sea and the small creaking of restless birds in the flame-tree outside.
I got up, lit the petrol lamp, fished in my bag for the notes Nino Ferrari had given me and began to study them. They were simple, dry, precise; an elementary exposition of the principles of free diving with a static air-supply. They spoke of the relation of pressure to depth; of the accumulation of free nitrogen in the bloodstream; of the dynamics of motion in deep water; temperature variations and symptoms of narcosis; and positive control of the Eustachian tubes.
I read them, line by line, but they made no impression on me. I was a man beset with visions. Visions of coral gardens, and monstrous fish in rainbow colours, and a shadowy ship festooned with sea-grasses in whose holds lay chests of gold guarded by antique horrors.
I heard the girl chattering and moaning as the ague shook her again. I got up and held the lamp high to look at her. I was shocked and frightened. Her lips were blue. There were great shadows round her sunken eyes, which stared blindly at the yellow light. I put the lamp down while I bathed her face and neck and hands. I forced two tablets between her lips and washed them down with water, which splashed on the covers as I held the glass to her chattering mouth. Then I settled her back against the pillow and, pulling a packing-case to the foot of the stretcher, I sat down to wait.
It was three in the morning when the fever broke. Great spasms wracked and twisted her and her moaning rose to a high bubbling sound. Then suddenly she seemed to collapse. A foul sweat broke out over her body and ran down her cheeks into the hollows of her neck and breast. She seemed to struggle for air and then lay very still. I felt her pulse; it was weak but steady. Her breathing became regular again; and, when I held a glass of water to her lips, she opened her eyes and said faintly, “I don’t know you.”
I grinned at her and said, “You soon will. I’m Renn Lundigan. You’re Pat Mitchell. I saw the name in your wallet.”
That puzzled her. She closed her eyes and turned her head slowly from side to side on the pillow. When she looked at me again, I could see she was afraid.
“I’ve been sick, haven’t I?”
“Very sick. You stepped on a stone-fish. You’re lucky to be alive.”
Memory was stirring slowly now. She struggled to sit up. I pressed her gently back onto the pillow.
“Just lie there. There’s plenty of time. It’ll all come back if you take it easy.”
She sighed fretfully like a child.
“I don’t remember this place. Where am I?”
“You’re on my island. This is my tent.”
“Did you bring me here?”
“To the tent—yes. To the island—no. You were here when I came. You needed looking after, so we brought you up here for the night.
“Who’s—we?”
“Johnny Akimoto and myself. Johnny’s a friend of mine.’
“Oh.”
Suddenly she seemed to droop. The worn body was refusing its functions. She closed her eyes, so that I thought she had fallen asleep. Then she opened them again.
“Please . . . could I have a drink? I’m thirsty.”
I held the glass to her lips, raising her head while she drank greedily, choking on the last mouthful. Then I lowered her to the pillow and she thanked me gravely, like a small schoolgirl.
“That was nice. Thank you very much.”
I turned away to get rid of the glass and then, when I looked at her again, she was asleep.
I drew the covers over her and closed the flap of the tent to keep out the wind. I threw myself on the stretcher, bone-weary, but no longer depressed. It was as if we had fought a battle together and won it. In a few minutes, I, too, was asleep.
Johnny Akimoto brought us our breakfast: coral trout, fresh caught and grilled on the coals, thick buttered bread, tea sweetened with condensed milk. He grinned broadly when he saw the girl awake and with an anxious, puzzled smile on her worn face. I made the introductions.
�
��Pat Mitchell, this is Johnny Akimoto, my good friend. Johnny, this is Pat.”
“I should thank you both. I . . . I don’t seem to remember very much.”
“We were worried about you, Miss Pat,” said Johnny. “This morning I thought you might be dead. I looked in and saw you both sleeping. I thought maybe you would like fresh fish for breakfast.”
He laid the tin plate on the side of the bed and watched anxiously while she propped herself on one elbow and began to pick at it.
“You like it, Miss Pat? He was a big fellow. All of four pounds.”
His eyes lit up when she smiled at him and said quietly, “It’s very nice, thank you, Johnny.”
We ate together—talking little. The fish was sweet eating and the new sun warmed us through the grey canvas of the tent. I saw the colour flow slowly back into the girl’s face as she nibbled at the food and drank mouthfuls of the steaming tea.
She raised her head and looked at me. The question seemed to worry her. She took time to phrase it.
“It was a stone-fish, you said?”
“That’s right. Don’t you remember?”
“Not very well. I was walking on the reef. . . .”
“Silly to walk on the reef barefoot.”
She was instantly angry.
“I wasn’t barefoot. I know better than that. I was wearing sandshoes. There was a pebble in one of them. I stopped to take if off. I overbalanced and slipped into a pool. My bare foot must have landed on the stone-fish.
Johnny and I grinned at her small, weak anger. She flushed and went on.
“I don’t remember how I got back. The pain was frightening. I seemed to be paralysed. I fell several times. I remember wondering if I’d be caught by the tide. After that . . . nothing. How long have I been sick?
“We don’t know. We only arrived last night. You were unconscious when we found you.”
A sudden thought came to her. Cautiously she drew back the sheet and looked down at her damaged leg.
“You dressed this for me?”
“Johnny did. He had to open it. You won’t be able to walk for a while.”
“No . . . I suppose not.” Again the cautious framing of the question. “These . . . these aren’t the clothes I was wearing on the reef.”
I turned away and fumbled for a cigarette; but Johnny Akimoto answered her with never a smile.
“You were very sick, Miss Pat. Renboss had to change your clothes and wash you.”
She blushed ripe red; then her chin went up bravely and she said, “You’ve been kind and gentle to me. I’m very grateful.”
“More tea, Miss Pat?” said Johnny, the courtly gentleman.
“Thank you, Johnny. I seem to be dried out.” Johnny took the tin mug and went out to the fire to fill it again. She turned to me.
“You told me last night this was your island.”
“That’s right.”
“I didn’t know that. I didn’t mean to trespass.”
“You weren’t trespassing.” I stumbled over it, lamely. “When you’re well again, Johnny can take you back to the mainland.”
“There’s no need for that. I’ve got my own boat. I don’t want to give you any more trouble.”
It was an awkward moment. Courtesy might betray me into the very situation I wanted to avoid. The girl had been ill. She was handling an embarrassing interlude with some charm and more dignity than I myself could muster. But the fact remained: I wanted her off the island as quickly as possible.
Then Johnny came back with the tea and a suggestion that gave me time to think.
“You have been sick, Miss Pat. You are still sick, although the fever is gone. You must rest as much as you can. If you like we will carry you down to the beach. We can make a shade for you with the tent-fly and you can watch us while we work.”
Her face brightened. “I’d like that. I could sleep. I could write up some notes. And as you say, I could watch you work. What sort of work is it?”
“Renboss, here, wants to learn skin-diving. I have come out to teach him.”
She laughed at that, strongly, happily.
“That’s not work. That’s play.”
“The way Johnny teaches, its hard work. You wait and see.”
My bluff-adventurer’s manner didn’t deceive her for a moment. She gave me a long, level look and said quietly, “This is your island, Mr Lundigan. Whatever you choose to do here is you own affair. I promise you I’ll mind my business and leave you as soon as I can travel.”
Johnny Akimoto choked convulsively, spluttered something about a fishbone, and rushed from the tent. Miss Patricia Mitchell gave me a sidelong smile and settled back on her pillow.
“Renn Lundigan, eh? You were quite a legend in your day. I never thought I’d meet you face to face.”
“I don’t know what the devil you’re talking about——”
“That’s natural enough. They sacked you, didn’t they? Dead drunk under the Dean’s window at nine in the morning.”
I gaped at her, speechless. The smile died on her lips and she laid a small, clammy hand on my own.
“I’m teasing you and it’s not kind—after all you’ve done for me. I’m from Sydney, too, you see. I’m a reader in natural history at the university. Small world, isn’t it?”
A small world, indeed. Too damned small, when a man’s past follows him out to the last island on the last reef before the wide ocean. Anger boiled in me swiftly, and spilled out in a spate of bitter words.
“All right . . . so you know me. But I don’t want to know you. I don’t want you here, but you’re ill and I can’t do anything about it. Understand this: so long as you’re here, we’ll care for you. We’ll feed you, nurse you and make you as comfortable as maybe. But as soon as you can walk I want you gone. If you can’t handle your own craft Johnny will take you back. Until then, don’t talk to me about the past. It’s dead—done—finished. Don’t talk to me about friends. I have none. And when you go, leave me in peace. Forget you’ve ever seen me.”
I turned on my heel and walked out of the tent. I thought I heard her weeping, but I didn’t turn back. She was the past and I wanted no part in her. The past was dead and best forgotten. It was an illusion, of course. A wild, crazy illusion. But I was still fool enough to cherish it.
Johnny Akimoto rowed me out to a rock-pool on the inner fringe of the reef. He pulled easily across the oily water, and when I looked back I could see the small shelter on the sands where Pat Mitchell lay on her stretcher looking out to sea. It was Johnny who had set it up for her, Johnny who had carried her down and made her comfortable and set the water-bag within reach, and dressed her wound and left the tablets at her hand.
Johnny. . . . Always Johnny. . . . Johnny’s was the strength and mine the weakness. Johnny’s the calm wisdom and mine the folly of frustration and flight. He was sober and subdued as we rowed out, and if there was pity in his eyes I could not read it.
We moored the skiff to a niggerhead, one of those jutting stumps of dead coral which are found all over the reefs, and which have the look of a frizzled skull on top of a stumpy neck. I took off my sandshoes and put on the pair of flippers that Nino Ferrari had given me. They were not the orthodox model with half sole and a heel-strap. They were made with a full sole and a heel-grip so that the diver might walk on the coral floor without too much danger from stone-fish and spiny-urchins.
I buckled on the wide canvas belt, weighted with seven pounds of lead slugs, with the long knife of tempered steel in a sheath of plaited leather. Now I was ready for the lung-pack.
The two cylinders of compressed air were fixed to a frame of light alloy and they fitted on my back as a knapsack fits on the back of a climber, with an arrangement of canvas braces slung on the shoulders and buckled under the breast. Two tubes of corrugated rubber, coated with cotton webbing, led from the cylinders to the polished metal disc of the regulator, which is the mainspring of the mechanical lung. Another tube of the same material terminated in a smal
l rubber mouthpiece with slotted rubber lugs to be gripped between the teeth of the diver.
I set the regulator and Johnny Akimoto lifted the pack onto my back, settling the spine-pad comfortably, while the straps were buckled and tested.
Now I was ready for the mask. I dipped it in the sea to wet the rubber and wash the perspex so that it would not mist over under water. Then I slipped it over my head, moulded the rubber into my cheekbones and tried a breath to test whether it was watertight. Then I adjusted the strap at the back of my skull and slipped the mask up on my forehead.
Johnny Akimoto watched me with careful interest.
“Ready now, Renboss?”
“Ready, Johnny.”
“Take a look first before you go down.”
I sat down in the thwarts and looked over into the clear water. Coral pools vary in depth from a few inches to fifteen or twenty feet. This one was perhaps a dozen yards long and fifteen feet wide. Its depth was no more than two fathoms. Yet, like all the others on the reef, it was a perfect microcosm of the colourful and abundant life of the coral sea.
Soft sea-grasses, green and red and gold, moved gently as if to an underwater wind. Purple lavender corals spread like flowers in a summer garden. Red and white anemones spread their tentacles like the petals of a Japanese chrysanthemum. Soft corals in rainbow colours lay like primitive frescoes from the rocky walls. Shoals of small fish, striped and dappled, darted about among the foliage. A blue starfish lay motionless on the sandy bottom and a hermit crab made a tentative foray from the speckled coneshell which was his home. It was a world of riotous colour and teeming life and I felt a sudden thrill at the thought that I was soon to be made free of it. I looked up at Johnny.