Blackbird

by David Crookes

  Moser took the carbine from one of the dockers and handed it back to Ben as the men filed out of the office.

  Ben wiped a trickle of blood from his mouth. He looked Charles in the eye.

  `Don't I know you?'

  `I'm Charles Worthington-Jones. I was on the dock the day you whipped the sailors.'

  `Oh yes,' Ben said. `And you were present also when Kiri was taken to Madam Jane's and sold as a whore.'

  Charles flushed at the mention of the incident he would just as soon forget.

  Ben noticed his reaction.

  `Mr Worthington-Jones. The little misunderstanding Mr Moser just mentioned was about Kiri. She and her child have disappeared. I told him if I discover he is in any way responsible, I will kill him. And I want you to know, here and now, that if it comes to light that you had a hand in all this, I will kill you also.'

  *

  A week after the incident at Stonehouse's, Silas Moser arrived at Castlecraig to drive Charles to the nearby Newstead wharf to board his steamer to England. Charles was ready and waiting at the front door, sitting on a large hard canvas-bound wooden trunk, its lid buckled down tightly with two thick straps.

  When the carriage entered the driveway Catherine looked up from directing the placement of sunshades over tables which were set up on the lawn, in readiness for a ladies reception to be held later in the day. She walked quickly up towards the house, and reached the door just as Moser's driver and Jenkins finished struggling to load the trunk into the carriage.

  She kissed Charles quickly on the mouth then drew away. `Bon Voyage my darling.' she said. `I shall miss you.'

  Charles was surprised to see her blink back a tear. Over the past weeks and months he had been so absorbed in his work he had time for little else—particularly Catherine.During that time, although nothing was said, he knew they were drifting apart, and he wondered how his upcoming six month absence would affect them.

  The SS Lady Diamantina lay between two sleek English clippers which were loading wool at the Newstead wharf. Unlike Charles' steamer which would burn coal along the shorter route to England around northern Australia, the Indian Ocean, and the Suez Canal—the clippers would spread every inch of canvas they dared, in the race home through howling winds around Cape Horn, to arrive in London in time for the spring wool sales.

  It had been a perfect morning, but the weather began to deteriorate soon after Charles and Moser boarded the steamer. Anxious to avoid being caught in a summer storm as he drove home, Moser stayed aboard just long enough to go over one last time, the most important matters which he required Charles to attend to in London and Scotland.

  Two hours later the Lady Diamantina passed beneath Hamilton Heights on a course which would take her northward inside the Great Barrier Reef to the Torres Straight and beyond.

  Charles stood on the steamer's deck. He looked up at the big gaunt house high up on the hill which was now his home, and for a moment he pondered how his life had changed since he first sailed up the Brisbane River aboard the English Rose.

  He had thought perhaps Catherine may have been looking down at the ship. But the battlements at the top of the tower stood stark and empty against a graying, blustery sky. He felt a drop of rain on his face. When he turned to go down to his cabin he smiled briefly at the prospect of a deluge washing out Catherine's gathering of immaculately dressed ladies. *

  The weather was still dark and stormy late the next day when the Lady Diamantina stood off the mouth of the Burnett River. She pitched and wallowed bow-on to short choppy seas, taking on mail brought by tender, from the sugar cane town of Bundaberg a few miles upstream.

  Charles was standing at the rail watching the mail come aboard when he noticed a ship sailing out of the river-mouth. The little vessel heeled over hard when the strong wind blowing outside caught her beam as she came out of the lee of the land. But she seemed to take the onslaught in her stride, as sheets eased, she dug in to the angry waves and headed directly out to sea. The vessel somehow looked familiar. Charles took another look. The ship was a brigantine. It was the Faithful.

  *

  Isaiah Cockburn's small cabin aboard the Faithful was his home. For most of the more than fifty years he had spent at sea, he had been obliged to lay his head on whatever he could— wherever he could. But now his well-worked, often bruised, and sometimes broken body, demanded respite from the physical punishment a wind-ship sailor was required to endure on a daily basis.

  Accordingly he had fashioned his cabin to give him some small degree of comfort. Now as the Faithful battered her way off-shore, through angry wind-driven waves rolling in from the open ocean, he was glad he had.

  He sat poring over papers and making entries in a ship's journal at the chart table which also served as his desk when he was attending to ship's business. He worked strapped into a well padded swivel chair which was bolted down securely to the cabin floor.

  Without warning, the brigantine suddenly heeled over even further as it was hit by yet another strong wind gust. Cockburn cursed as the journal and most of the papers flew across the cabin, and the brass lantern above his head swung wildly, threatening to pull out its anchoring hook in the cabin roof.

  Long experience had taught him it was foolish to put to sea in such unsettled weather— especially in the cyclone season. He knew there was a strong summer storm brewing somewhere, and even the greenest sailor knew that the best place to be in a storm was in port, tied snugly down.

  But Cockburn also knew well, that working vessels made no profit laying idle alongside a wharf, or tugging at an anchor rode. And a contract inside his chart table, which Stonehouse's had won as a result of submitting the lowest bid when tenders were called by a Bundaberg plantation for the supply of eighty eight blacks, contained a clause clearly stating that time was of the essence.

  Cockburn retrieved the journal and papers from the cabin floor and resumed making entries. There was a knock at the door. It was Clancy the mate.

  `She's blowing hard out there Isaiah. I've put two strong lads on the helm. I think it's goin' to be a long wet night.'

  Another powerful gust slammed the Faithful and Clancy grabbed a stout handhold in the cabin roof with both hands. Cockburn swung his chair around to face the mate.

  `How's the woman and the boy Clancy?'ﾁ

  Clancy grinned.

  `I just checked. They're all right now, but it's rough as hell up there in the bow. I reckon they'll be sicker than dogs before long.' Clancy's grin changed to a frown. `What in hell we goin' to do with them anyway?'

  Cockburn shrugged. `I'll do what Moser told me to do-take them back to the islands.'

  `But we can't go to any of the New Guinea islands. They're out of bounds these days. If the Royal Navy catches us, the Faithful gets confiscated—or more likely sunk.'

  `We won't be going to the Trobriand Islands Clancy. Moser won't risk the Faithful. He told me to drop them off at the first island we call at in the Solomons.'

  `And which one will that be?'

  `Probably Guadalcanal or Malaita.'

  `That could be three weeks from now. That's too long. Some of the crew will be sniffin' around the woman long before that.' Clancy shook his head. `That Kanaka has always been more trouble than she was ever worth Isaiah. If it weren't for her, Higgins would still be alive today. And Bates, the recruiter wouldn't have the scars he's got on his face from that whippin' he took on the dock. I talked to him this mornin'. He reckons we should just drop the black bitch over the side and be done with it.'

  Cockburn slammed his fist down hard on the chart table.

  `So you and Bates would just kill her,' he roared angrily, `like you killed the old Chinaman at the brickyard that night. Let me tell you something Clancy. Moser told me to land the woman and the boy in the Solomon Islands, and that's exactly what I intend to do. He also said that no harm was to come to either one of them—especially the boy. Now have you got that straight?'

  The Faithful rolled wildly as she fe
ll off a big wave.

  `It's gettin' rougher Isaiah,' Clancy said quietly. `I'd best get back up topside. We may have to shorten sail.'

  *

  The motion in the forepeak, the angular section of the Faithful bow where Kiri and Sky were confined, was incredibly violent. And each time the vessel crashed into the trough between the steep seas, there was an ear-splitting crack, followed by a long shudder as the bow rose up to the next wave.

  Kiri and Sky lay clinging desperately to each other in total darkness on old mildewed sailcloth, wedged into the corner of a tiny locked compartment. To add to their misery, there was no escaping the salt water which constantly dripped down on them through the caulking between the decking planks, and from around the edges of a small hatch above their heads.

  Kiri knew the filthy compartment well. It held ugly memories. It was here that Ned Higgins had kept her locked up in solitude, away from the ship's crew and the other islanders, when he was not having his way with her in his cabin on the voyage to Queensland from Kiriwina.

  Now as then, it was the darkness she hated most. During the short voyage up the coast from Brisbane to Bundaberg, the weather had been fine, and the small hatch in the compartment had been left open during the daytime, allowing the sunlight to stream in. But it had been several days since the ship had arrived at the sugar cane port to take on crew and provisions. Since then the hatch had been closed down tight, shutting out the light of day.

  Each morning, Kiri and Sky were given a wooden bowl containing hard biscuits and salt beef which they washed down with lukewarm water from a goatskin sack. It was only at night, under the cover of darkness, that they had been allowed to go out onto the deck for just long enough to attend to personal hygiene.

  Another enormous wave roared over the deck above them. Kiri drew Sky even tighter to her. The motion of the vessel was becoming much worse, and the thunder of the waves crashing over the bow was getting louder and louder. Sky had thrown up soon after they left the mouth of the Burnett River. Now his stomach had nothing left in it and his little body began to writhe with the dry heaves.

  Tears streamed down Kiri's cheeks. And she wondered what was happening to them and why, and if it were possible for them both to survive the terrible nightmare they were living.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  On the afternoon of the second day out from Bundaberg, the skies began to clear, but the wind still remained strong. The Faithful was now in deep water, having left the shallow water of the continental shelf astern, when, during the night, she passed over the southern extremities of the Great Barrier Reef.

  Now she was charging along under full sail with the wind on her starboard beam, on a course which would take her directly across the Coral Sea to the Solomon Islands.

  Kiri heard footsteps on the bow planks above her. The hatch cover opened for the first time in days, and sunlight streamed into her tiny prison. Unable to see, she shielded her eyes from the dazzling glare of the sun with one hand, and held Sky closely to her with the other. Suddenly the front of her dress was torn open and a hard calloused hand gripped her throat.

  Instinctively she seized the strong forearm in front of her face and sank her teeth deep into flesh she was still too blinded to see.

  There was a loud grunt and the arm was quickly yanked away.

  `Rotten bitch.'

  The voice belonged to Bates, the labor recruiter. Kiri looked up, her eyes becoming used to the light. She recognized him immediately, the same ugly lout who had used her as a human shield when he kidnapped her from her island of Kiriwina so long ago. But now there were hard white scars on his cruel face, a legacy of the whipping Ben had given him on the South Brisbane dock. He was lying on the deck, his angry face twisted with rage, framed by the hatch against the clear blue sky.

  Bates' arm hung down into the compartment. It was bleeding profusely with the hand clenched into a tight bloody fist. He swung it savagely, seeking retribution for the wound he had suffered.

  Kiri quickly shrunk back out of reach of the flailing fist. She heard a shout on the deck. Bates quickly withdrew his arm, and the darkness returned when the hatch was hastily slammed shut.

  She heard more footsteps on the deck. There was more loud shouting, followed by what sounded like a scuffle. When it was over, the hatch opened again. Kiri looked up into the glare and saw Clancy the mate.

  'Captain says this hatch can stay open now, so long as there's no rain, spray or sailors goin' down in there. You and the boy can sit up here on the bow and get some air if you want. But as soon as it starts to get dark, I'll be back to lock it.'

  Kiri waited until Clancy had gone away before she poked her head up out of the hatch. The air outside was fresh and clean after the stench of sweat and vomit in the forepeak. She scrambled out onto the deck and pulled Sky up after her.

  The bow still rose and fell. There was a big swell running, but the crests of the waves were nearly two hundred yards apart and the motion of the vessel was now a slow easy roll. Kiri sat with her arm around Sky with the wind in their faces, until the sun came to rest, like a huge red ball on the horizon, and slowly sank into the ocean.

  For the next nine days the Faithful held true to her course, sailing under clear skies with a favorable sou'-easter filling her sails.

  The rough passage which Isaiah Cockburn had expected at the start of the voyage was now the last thing on his mind as he sat at the chart table and carefully made his daily entry into the ship's log.

  He carefully noted the Faithful's position, established earlier in the day when he had taken a noon sun-sight with his sextant. He made a rough estimate of the wind velocity and entered that too into the log. When he turned to the barometer to take a reading he was startled to see the glass had plunged alarmingly.

  Cockburn took a long second look at the weather-glass, then hastily left his cabin and climbed up the main companionway to the deck.

  One look confirmed his fears. High in the sky were clusters of mares' tails—long wisps of whitish clouds.

  Mares' tails, accompanied by a sudden fall in the glass meant only one thing—a tropical storm was approaching.

  Cockburn turned to face the wind. It had lost much of its strength. Soon he knew it would return with a vengeance and whip up the sea into a seething frenzy. He knew it was the calm before the storm.

  `Clancy.' Cockburn yelled at the top of his voice.

  The mate scrambled down a ratline to the deck.

  `I know Isaiah,' Clancy said before Cockburn spoke, `I've just been aloft. I'd say we haven't got much more than six or seven hours before it hits us.'

  Cockburn nodded his agreement. `Then prepare the ship.'

  `All hands - prepare to shorten sail and batten down.'

  Sixteen men jumped to Clancy's command. Eight sailors scrambled up the ratlines of the square-rigged forward mast. They quickly lowered every sail, then lashed each one down tightly to its yard. Four others doused the two most foremost of her three stay-sails and tied them fast to the bow-sprit.

  The rest of the hands lowered all but the largest of the fore and aft rigged mizzen mast sails at the stern of the vessel. The sail left hoisted was a gaff-rigged spanker, ringed to the mast, and laced at the foot to a twenty six foot long boom, at least fourteen inches in diameter, and fashioned of solid Tasmanian huon pine.

  With just the spanker and the forward stay-sail flying, and with everything that was capable of moving securely lashed or battened down, the Faithful continued on along her course and awaited the fury of the storm.

  During the few hours before darkness fell, the mares' tails gradually increased until the sky was filled with a whitish haze. After darkness came, and when the moon was briefly visible through breaks in the cloud cover, it was shrouded in a eerie misty halo.

  The first incredibly powerful wind gusts hit the brigantine over her beam just few minutes before midnight. Cockburn ordered Clancy to tie a double reef into the spanker. Eight men crawled out onto the rolling wheel-house r
oof over which the huge sail-boom extended, and relying more on the sense of feel than sight, reefed down the big heavy sail in total darkness.

  Then the rain came. It lashed down on the deck—justscattered windswept showers at first, but then later it came with the ferocious intensity and sheer volume of water found only in the tropics. And all the time the wind kept increasing. It screamed in the rigging and whipped up the sea into huge towering waves, mercifully hidden from view by the blackness of the night. But the deafening roar they made as they crashed down on the Faithful was spine-chilling.

  Cockburn, Clancy and four sailors remained in the wheel-house all through the long night. The rest of the crew were sent below to their bunks to get what sleep they could, until it was time to stand their watch or take a turn at the helm.

  During the night the wind had backed around to the stern quarter. Now the Faithful was racing along, pushed forward by the ever increasing wind and huge following seas.

  Up in the forepeak, Kiri and Sky were tossed around wildly as the bow pitched and heaved, then raced headlong down the face of the waves. Sky was already limp and unconscious, and Kiri was so sick she felt as if she wanted to die.

  When the first grey streaks of dawn appeared, Cockburn's tired and bloodshot eyes peered out through a porthole in the wheel-house. What he saw was awesome. The seascape was terrifying. Angry mountainous seas with long overhanging crests were breaking everywhere. Between them there were huge streaky patches of white foam, and the air was filled with spray.

  The stay-sail at the bow had blown out during the night. Cockburn estimated the wind strength to be over sixty knots. Even inside the wheel-house the howl of the wind in the rigging was deafening.

  The Faithful was taking a beating which Cockburn wasn't sure she could withstand. The huge seas buffeting the stern quarter were becoming even bigger, and more dangerous. The Faithful was moving too fast—far too fast. With the double-reefed spanker still flying and even with three men on the wheel, it was becoming harder by the minute to maintain control of the vessel, and prevent her from broaching and swinging broadside onto the waves.