Blackbird

by David Crookes

  `This is the place I spoke of Mr Luk,' Jack said. He pointed toward the shore. `I would say any sailing vessel bound for Brisbane from the Torres Strait, and carrying a sea-wise master, would pass no more than a few miles off-shore of that headland, regardless of whether she sailed south inside or outside the Great Barrier Reef.'

  `I only hope you're right Jack,' Ben said. `This is the only chance we'll get.' Jack grinned. `Don't you worry, Mr Luk. Captain Blue will pass close by to the Great Sandy Cape. Because it's here, some fifty miles from the southern end of the Reef, and close

  to the shore of this island, that the East Australian current races southward at its strongest. Any vessel, sail or power, fresh from battling the tradewinds to the north, is bound to take full advantage of it.'

  Just to the north of Indian Head, lay a deep bay with a pristine, sandy beach. Jack pointed the bow of the barge towards it. An hour later they lay securely at anchor in the shallow water of the bay, just outside the breakers.

  Immediately, a landing party braved the surf and rowed ashore in a small boat. They took with them tents, supplies, and provisions—enough to maintain a lengthy day and night vigil from the highest point on the windswept headland.

  An hour after dawn on the fourth morning, the look-out party on the headland sighted a press of sail to the northwest of Great Sandy Cape. Soon after, the sails of another vessel came into view. It was what they had been looking for—two sailing ships, one large, and one much smaller, travelling southward in company.

  A runner was dispatched to the barge in the bay. The vessel weighed anchor and put to sea without delay.She intercepted the Mendocino Trader, short-tacking to an unusually light southeaster, about five miles off-shore. When the barge drew close, Jack Stark signaled he had a passenger who wished to board the schooner. The Mendocino Trader hove-to, sails flapping, in a gently heaving swell.

  Ben clambered into a dinghy, carrying a leather satchel slung over one shoulder. The oarsman soon closed the distance to the schooner. Ben climbed up a rope-ladder and swung himself over the ship's rail onto the deck. He was quickly surrounded by a throng of sailors.

  The crowd parted to allow a tall blond-haired man through to where Ben was standing. `I am Christian Blue, master of this vessel. What is your business here?'

  `I am Ben Luk. I spoke with Mrs Vivian Stokes, just a few days ago. She told me of your

  voyage to the Trobriand Islands to return my wife to her home on Kiriwina. For that I will always be in your debt.' Christian Blue shrugged off Ben's gratitude. `I did only what any man would have done in the same circumstances, Mr Luk. But you didn't stop me out here on the ocean to tell me that. If you spoke with Mrs Stokes, you would know already, I am expected in Brisbane shortly.'

  `That is why I am here, Captain Blue. I have come to tell you that Mrs Stokes, and other opponents to the Melanesian labor-trade, have learned the Colonial Government intends to detain you and the Faithful at the Port of Brisbane and contest your ownership of the vessel.'

  Christian Blue shook his head. `And no doubt the government in doing so, is under pressure from the Stonehouse Shipping Company and that slippery bastard Silas Moser. Goddamn his eyes.'

  The Captain looked out to sea. The Faithful was now less than half a mile away. `Mr Luk, thank you for the warning. If I am to be denied ownership and the sale of that slaver, then I figure I may as well sink her here and now. That way she will never pass back into the hands of Silas Moser.'

  `Don't do that, Captain,' Ben said quickly. He took the leather satchel from his shoulder and held it out to Christian Blue. `In this bag I have the balance of your money. I arranged with Mrs Stokes to purchase the Faithful myself. I feel it is the least I can do.'

  Christian Blue looked at Ben in amazement. `And what would you do with a brigantine, Mr Luk, even if they let you keep her?'

  `I will put her to good use,' Ben replied. `But I need the vessel for one voyage only. I will also need the services of a competent master, for whom I am willing to pay an additional five hundred pounds. He would sail to the Trobriand Islands and return Kiri, her son, and our unborn child to Queensland. What happens to the ship after that is of no consequence to me whatsoever.'

  `And what kind of captain do you think would be foolhardy enough to sail a labor-ship into the prohibited waters off the New Guinea coast, where the vessel may well be impounded by the Royal Navy?' Christian Blue asked skeptically.

  `I would say an adventurer, Captain Blue. A man who has been compassionate and brave enough to sail those waters before. And like myself, one who would like nothing more than to strike a blow against the likes of Silas Moser.'

  *

  Charles knew the moment he returned to his office at Stonehouse's, that the work which had accumulated during his absence, would take weeks of long hours to even begin to bring under control. But he was pleased to see all of the company's income producing areas appeared to be still performing well, with the only exception being freight services to the sugar industry.

  Knowing full well the imminent arrival of the steamships Clare and Catherine would only add to his workload, Charles threw himself into the task at hand. He arrived at the South Brisbane wharf just after dawn each morning, and worked without let-up until well into the night. But he found his concentration was constantly blurred by thoughts of Vivian.

  At first, he had sent daily messages to her at Bishop Gower's residence in Ascot imploring her to see him. When there had been no response to any of them, he had called at the house personally, only to be told by the bishop's young deacon that Mrs Stokes would not see him under any circumstances.

  After that, the long hours spent alone in his office only served to incubate his smoldering emotions. Eventually, torn between his work, the heartache of the emptiness of his life without Vivian, and what he saw as the pointlessness of his existence with Catherine, he decided he would ask her for a divorce. In the meantime he would move out of Castlecraig and live alone.

  The very next morning Charles went to Catherine's room to tell her he was leaving. It was very early, and still dark outside when he sat down on the edge of her bed. He woke her gently. With her eyes just open, she lay back sleepily, her head on her pillow, and listened without interruption while he told her what he had to say. As the words sank in, and Catherine realized what was happening, she sat bolt upright, suddenly wide awake.

  `It's Vivian isn't it?' she screamed out at the top of her voice.

  Charles was taken aback. `Vivian,why on earth would you say that?'

  `Because she and her crowd of do-gooders have poisoned you against me.' Catherine lowered her voice into a petulant whine. `She hasn't got a husband of her own, so she wants to take mine away from me.'

  `It not like that Catherine,' Charles said softly.

  `Don't lie to me Charles,' Catherine snapped angrily. `And don't try to deny it. I knew from the first day you came home, you had been having an affair with her. It was disgusting.When I came to you in the tower that night, it was my body you used, but it was Vivian you were making love to. I know.You called me by her name—twice.

  Charles sighed and stood up. He walked to the door. `Goodbye Catherine.'

  `You can't leave me Charles Worthington-Jones,' Catherine was screaming again, `I'm all you've got. Without me you're nothing. You have nowhere to go. And you'll be finished at Stonehouse's.'

  `I still have my house at Highgate Hill,' Charles said calmly from the door. `And in case you've forgotten, it's Silas Moser who runs the Stonehouse Shipping Company. I'm sure my leaving Castlecraig won't make the slightest difference to him.'

  Charles drove directly to the little house at Highgate Hill. It had not been lived in for over six months, but the last tenant had left the place pretty well as it was the day Charles moved out. When he reached Stonehouse's, Charles made arrangements for his things to be transferred from Hamilton, and for cleaners and a gardener to prepare his house for occupancy.

  When Charles told Silas Moser he had left C
atherine and was moving back into his own house, Moser had no comment. But several days later, when they stood on the Stonehouse wharf, watching the steamers Clare and Catherine take on their first loads of frozen meat, Moser said:

  `I think it's probably all for the best, Charles. After all, marriage can be a millstone around the neck of a man with ambition. It can prevent him from fulfilling his dreams of the future.That's why I've always chosen to remain single.' Moser pointed a bony finger toward the steamers. `Look there. What you see is history in the making—the first Queensland ships to carry Queensland meat to the hungry millions of Great Britain.Now, that's where the future lies for men like us, Charles.'

  Charles nodded his head and smiled faintly. In his heart he knew he must have more from the future. He wanted and needed Vivian to be a part of it. He decided there and then to call at Bishop Gower's house one more time. He would go immediately. After all, he had left Catherine. They no longer lived together as man and wife. Surely, he reasoned, as he climbed into a carriage to take him to Ascot, she wouldn't refuse to see him now.

  *

  The young deacon looked surprised when he opened the door and found Charles standing outside.

  `Please tell Mrs Stokes I must speak with her on a matter of some urgency,' Charles said, trying hard to hide his anxiety.

  `But that's impossible, sir,' the cleric replied. 'Mrs Stokes left Brisbane yesterday by steamer for Sydney, en route to England.'

  Charles climbed back into his carriage in stunned bewilderment. When he reached South Brisbane it was already dark, and knowing he could not concentrate on work, he told his driver to take him directly to Highgate Hill.

  He arrived at the house to find another carriage outside his door. At once he recognized it to be Catherine's. The carriage door opened and Catherine climbed out and hurried toward him.

  `I went to Stonehouse's to see you this afternoon,' she said pleasantly. `I waited there for quite some time before coming here. I would like to talk to you for a few minutes if I may.'

  `Catherine, I...'

  `It's very important,' she interrupted, `perhaps we can go inside the house.'

  They walked up the pathway and Charles unlocked the front door. When they stepped inside Catherine waited in the darkness while he lit a small gas lamp in the narrow hallway. From its glow he lit more lamps in the living room, then closed the curtains on the blackness outside. He turned to face her.

  `What is it Catherine?'

  `I want you to come home, Charles.'

  He looked at her in amazement. `But nothing's changed. It's over between us. We have no children to consider—you saw to that. So I have no responsibilities or commitments to hold me at Castlecraig.

  `Oh but you do, Charles.' Suddenly her voice lost its congeniality. It rose into a scathing tirade. `You have a responsibility to me, one which I will not allow you to ignore. I have a reputation and social position in this colony which you are not going to tarnish. I am not just anyone. I am the daughter of Alexander Stonehouse. When I allowed you into the Stonehouse family and changed my name to Worthington-Jones, I had no intention for it to be on a short term basis. What I am saying, Charles, is that I will never give you a divorce. You will remain my husband.'

  `But I don't love you, Catherine.'

  She laughed. `What difference does that possibly make. Why should it?I've never loved you.'

  At first her candor amazed him, then hurt and angered him. Charles opened his mouth to speak, but before words came she continued her onslaught.

  `I spoke with Vivian and Bishop Gower a few days ago. What a hypocrite that woman is. She comes out here, full of condemnation of what she calls colonial amorality, but thinks nothing of coercing you into the worst kind of immorality—adultery and infidelity.'

  Charles' body was shaking with rage. `Catherine, tell me, what have you done,' he demanded through clenched teeth. `I learned today that Vivian left suddenly for London just yesterday.'

  Catherine's thin lips curled. `I just told her what you told me, that you and she were having an affair and that you wanted a divorce.'

  `I didn't tell you Vivian and I were having an affair,' Charles said fiercely.

  Catherine tossed back her long hair. `But she didn't deny it, she just cried and tried to apologize. And poor Bishop Gower, I don't know whether he was more outraged or embarrassed. I am of course, patron and principal fund raiser for several of the church's orphanages in the colony. I had to point out to him, that not only would a divorce force the public washing of Vivian's dirty laundry, but her association with the Exeter Hall Society and the church would only cause irreparable harm to both institutions.'

  Charles felt the fight begin to drain from him. He sat down in a large lounge chair and held his head in his hands.

  Catherine stood and watched as his rage and indignation evaporated. After a few moments she turned and walked to the front door. She opened it, and just before she stepped out into the night she said:

  `We decided the best solution all around was for Vivian to return to England immediately. That way she could avoid the spectacle of her sordid private life being dragged out into the open—the reputation of the Exeter Society would remain intact, and Bishop Gower's orphanages would not be threatened with closure for lack of funding. Of course Charles, you realize that this compromise is only possible if you return to Castlecraig immediately.'

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Christian Blue turned the Mendocino Trader over to Jackson the mate. His instructions were to avoid the Port of Brisbane, slog his way down the New South Wales coast to Port Jackson, then look for a cargo in Sydney while awaiting the arrival of the Faithful.

  Meanwhile the Faithful, manned by a skeleton crew of volunteers, charged to the northeast under clear sunny skies. She was in her element, laying a boiling white wake over the turquoise water of the Coral Sea, with the roaring south-east tradewind blowing hard over her starboard beam.

  Ten days out from Great Sandy Cape, the look-out sent aloft to keep a keen eye out for Royal Navy patrol boats, sighted the first of the Trobriand Islands from his perch high in the yards. Late the next day the Faithful once again dropped anchor in the still water off the settlement on Kiriwina.

  Ben and Christian Blue stood at the rail and looked toward the beach. It was deserted. `I will go onto the island alone.' Ben said as a ship's boat was lowered into the water. `Kiri has told me how the sight of a landing party from a labor-ship terrifies the islanders, and is provocation enough for the young men to attack without warning.'

  `Be careful, Ben.' Christian Blue cautioned. `And get back to the ship just as soon as you can. The British have already caught me once at this very spot.' The captain glanced nervously up to the look-out, who was still at his post high in the rigging. `I don't figure they'd ever let me go if they found me here a second time.'

  Ben climbed down into the boat and its two oarsmen pushed off. The small craft soon reached the beach.Ben jumped out and waved the sailors back to the ship, then quickly stripped to the waist, anxious to show any unseen eyes ashore that he was unarmed. He took his first steps slowly until his sea-legs became accustomed to the unyielding firmness of the land, then he strode purposefully toward the coconut grove at the edge of the beach.

  As soon as Ben entered the palms, and passed out of sight of Christian Blue's anxious eyes aboard the Faithful he heard a parrot screech. A moment later he shrieked in pain, as the finely honed tip of a thin, wooden spear, slammed into the soft flesh of his shoulder and burst out the other side.

  Suddenly he found himself surrounded by a dozen or more yelling islanders. They were armed with short, thick clubs, which they used to pummel him to the ground, in a barrage of blows to his head and body. He was barely conscious when the pounding finally ended. He was pulled roughly back onto his feet, and he swayed unsteadily as ropes fashioned from crudely woven vines were tied tightly around his throat, and his hands were bound together behind his back.

  Ben almost passed ou
t from the pain when one of the islanders broke off the long end of the spear, and another pulled the broken shaft out through the back of his shoulder. Then he felt the vines around his neck tighten, and he was dragged stumbling and crawling, down a narrow trail which led to the village.

  A runner, sent ahead of the others, alerted the village headman that only one man had landed on the island from the labor-ship, and that he had been taken captive. Soon a large crowd had assembled in the clearing between the grass huts in the village, noisily awaiting the arrival of the warriors and their prisoner.

  The headman glanced around and saw the anger on the faces in the crowd. He knew it would be difficult to prevent the intruder from being killed instantly when the warriors reached the village. He was afraid the villagers would ignore the instructions of the headmen on the ships with the big guns, sent by the far-off Queen to protect them—that any kidnappers should be captured, but not killed.

  The day before, when canoes had arrived from the outer islands warning of the sighting of the labor-ship, the headman had dispatched canoes to other islands. They in turn, would send more canoes to more islands and spread the word that a labor-ship was in the waters of the Trobriands.

  The headman knew it wouldn't be long before the message reached one of the ships, and that the white men would soon come and punish the labor-traders.

  As the warriors neared the village, a young woman carrying a new born baby in her arms emerged from one of the grass huts. It was Kiri. She crossed the clearing and stood beside her father, the headman. She beckoned to a small boy who stood among a group of excited children nearby, and Sky reluctantly came and stood beside her.

  Soon the warriors entered the clearing, still yelling, with their dazed and bleeding captive lurching along behind them. Kiri's eyes widened.Beneath the wounds, the blood and grime, the hapless prisoner looked somehow familiar.She watched as the ropes around his neck slackened and he dropped face down to the ground. Her heart pounded in her chest when she saw the pigtail in the prisoner's hair.