The Snow Tiger / Night of Error

by Bagley, Desmond

  ‘You once asked me where manganese came from and I told you from the rivers, the rocks and from volcanic activity. And I’ve been doing a bit of serious thinking about the latter class. But to start with, the Pacific is full of nodules while the Atlantic hasn’t many. Why?’

  The professorial method, involving the class in the answers always works. ‘You said it had something to do with sedimentation,’ Geordie recalled.

  ‘That’s the orthodox answer. It’s not entirely wrong, because if the sedimentation rate is high then the nodules stop growing – they get covered up and lose contact with the seawater – the colloidal medium. The sedimentation rate in the Atlantic is pretty high due to the Amazon and Mississippi, but I don’t think that’s the entire explanation. I want to show you something.’

  We all bent over the map.

  ‘One fact about the Pacific stands out a mile; it’s ringed with fire.’ My pencil traced a line, beginning in South America. ‘The Andes are volcanic, and so are the Rockies.’ It hovered over the North American Pacific coast. ‘Here’s the San Andreas Fault, the cause of the San Francisco earth-quake of 1908.’ My hand moved in a great arc across the North Pacific. ‘Active volcanoes are here, in the Aleutians and all over Japan. New Guinea is very volcanic and so are all the islands about there; here is Rabaul, a town surrounded by six cones – all active. There used to be five, but things stirred up a bit in 1937 and Vulcan Island built itself up into a major cone in twenty-four hours and with three hundred people killed.’

  I swept my hand further south. ‘New Zealand – volcanoes, geysers, hot springs – all the indications. South again to the Antarctic and you have Mount Erebus and Mount Terror, two bloody big volcanoes. And that completes the circle – a round trip of the Pacific.’

  I turned my attention eastward. ‘The Atlantic is pretty quiescent, volcanically speaking, except perhaps for the Icelandic area. There was the enormous Mount Pelée eruption down here in the Caribbean but as you can see that’s only just off the Pacific ring – and Krakatoa is in it, over Java way. The only place you find nodules in any quantity is on the Blake Plateau – and the interesting thing about that is that the Plateau is exactly where the current runs from the Caribbean, which I’ve already mentioned as being volcanic.’

  Geordie straightened up from the map.

  ‘You’ve got a hell of a lot of places to choose from.’

  ‘That’s the problem. And there are vents in the Pacific seabed which we don’t know about – hell, we’re almost on top of one now. But I know that high-cobalt area exists and I’ll stake my reputation that we find it in a volcanic area.’

  Campbell said, ‘As I understand you correctly, the nodules in the Pacific, the ordinary ones which occur in the greatest number of places, have been slowly growing through millions of years as a result of long-ago volcanic activity. But you think there are places where certain nodules might grow faster due to specific and recent volcanic activity.’

  ‘That’s it – and they’ll be high-cobalt, high-nickel and so on because of the fast growth. The metals will be entrapped while they’re still around, before they’re dispersed into the general waters of the Pacific.’

  ‘Um. That still doesn’t tell us where to look.’

  ‘I want to stick around the Western Pacific,’ I said intensely. ‘There are plenty of known undersea vents here, and it’s better fossicking round here than wasting our time.’ I had other reasons, of course – I wanted to begin my investigation into my brother’s death, but I was only too well aware that in Campbell’s eyes the commercial venture was the main, perhaps the only reason for our carrying on. He had some personal stake but not necessarily enough.

  There was a lot to think about, and talk fell away. Presently Geordie spoke up. ‘All right, let’s get on to Papeete and see what we can decide on the way,’ he said with finality.

  IV

  We sailed for Tahiti, first heading south to skirt the Tuamotus, and then on a direct course. Geordie didn’t want to sail through the Tuamotus unless he had to; the name, he told us, meant ‘The Dangerous Isles’ and they were every bit as dangerous as the name implied, a vast area of coral atolls and sharp-toothed reefs, not all of them charted.

  I judged we should arrive in Papeete just about the same time as the Eastern Sun, if she kept to her published schedule. I certainly hoped we would arrive first – I didn’t relish leaving Paula there without protection.

  Campbell perked up on this leg of the voyage, gradually returning to his old aggressive self, abetted by Clare. We had talked further about the possibilities ahead of us and I had tried to persuade him that I wasn’t taking him on any wild-goose chases, but in fact I had nothing much to go on myself, and was feeling very bothered by this. Clare was back to poring over Mark’s diary, trying to unravel a few more mysteries. I almost hoped she wouldn’t – we’d had enough trouble over the Récife de Minerve. She had hidden the transcript and the photostatted drawings, but had first made copies of these into her own notebook, and studied them covertly from time to time.

  It was pleasant enough sailing but not as invigorating as the first part of the trip out from Panama. In spite of the decision to make a new beginning we were all a little depressed, and had all been at sea for a long time. We felt the urge to tread firm ground again.

  So it was with relief that everyone heard Geordie’s announcement that Tahiti was within easy reach and would be sighted at any time. We were having lunch on deck and conversation was relaxed and easy. Clare sat a little way from the rest of us, still studying those damned drawings.

  ‘Land – dead ahead!’ Taffy Morgan hailed, and we all scrambled to our feet to get our first sight of Tahiti. There was only a small smudge on the horizon and we had a long while to go before we would see any more detail. We praised Geordie’s navigation and then stood lounging at the rails watching the smudge gain sharpness when Kane came over to Clare.

  ‘You left this on deck, Miss Campbell. It could blow over the side.’

  And he held out her open notebook, with many of Mark’s drawings in full view. We were all very still, looking at it.

  Clare said coolly, ‘Thank you, Mr Kane.’

  ‘I didn’t know you could draw, Miss.’

  ‘I can’t, not very well.’

  Kane grinned and flicked at the open pages. ‘Doesn’t look like it,’ he agreed. ‘That’s a pretty cow, mind you, but it’s a pretty scraggy-looking falcon.’

  Clare managed a smile as she took the book from him. ‘Yes, I’ll never be an artist,’ she said.

  Geordie said harshly, ‘Kane, have you spliced that new halliard yet?’

  ‘Just going to, skipper, no sweat.’ He walked away briskly and I let my breath out. Clare said in a soft voice, ‘God, I’m sorry.’

  Campbell watched Kane out of sight and made sure we were out of anyone else’s hearing. ‘Clare, of all the damn silly things to do.’

  ‘I said I was sorry.’

  ‘I don’t think it matters,’ I said calmly. ‘It’s not the actual diary – none of Mark’s handwriting shows. And for all we know Kane isn’t aware that the diary ever existed.’

  ‘Somebody might,’ said Clare. ‘That man Ramirez, he sent people to steal Mark’s things – he may have known about it.’

  ‘If Kane is a low man on the totem pole then he wouldn’t know everything. I don’t think it makes a bit of difference what Kane saw. Forget it.’

  Clare looked at the drawings again, and suddenly a smile displaced her air of tension. ‘Now that he’s mentioned the cow, I think I may have one of Mark’s awful puns figured out. Don’t get excited though, Pop – it’s only a wild guess.’

  She pointed to the cow and its companion, the squashed semi-circle.

  ‘I’ve been reading things, and I read somewhere that another name for the Tuamotus is the Low Islands. That’s what this flattish object is, a low island on the sea. Then he’s put OR – and drawn the cow. It’s two drawings for the same place – the Tuamotus.’


  ‘For God’s sake, why?’ Campbell demanded.

  ‘Cows go moo – they low.’ And she burst out laughing. I had to join her and even her father started to smile as he saw the joke. If true, it was a good one. We put the incident with Kane out of our minds.

  As Esmerelda drew nearer to Tahiti the sea gave place to mountains, hazy green, and then we began to see the surf breaking on the beaches as we sailed along the coast. We all turned our thoughts to cold beer ashore.

  Papeete, the Pearl of the Pacific, is a pleasant town with all the usual offices – banks, a hospital, shops and so forth, but it is also a collection of tin huts set down on a tropical island and therefore a trifle squalid; but the setting is magnificent. Arriving there we tied up almost in the main street and there are not many ports in the world where you can do that. Looking over the harbour you can see the island of Moorea nine miles away, a volcano which exploded in the far past leaving a jumble of spires and peaks leaning at impossible angles, one of the most splendid sights in the world, and one which must go a long way to compensate for any inconveniences occasioned by living in Papeete.

  I looked around the harbour for the Eastern Sun but there was no sign of her, so I tried to relax as we waited for customs clearance. Campbell was fretful, anxious to go ashore and see if there was anything for him at the post office. He was too much in the dark concerning the Suarez-Navarro expedition. I wasn’t any too patient myself. I had questions to ask and I wanted to try and see the Governor. I believe in starting at the top.

  At last a customs officer arrived, gave us a leisurely scrutiny and departed, leaving us free to go ashore. I had asked him when the Eastern Sun was due, and one of life’s rare miracles occurred.

  ‘The cruise boat, m’sieur? She come any time, I ’ave ’eard on ze radio. She is due tomorrow.’

  I spoke to Geordie before everyone vanished. ‘Who are the two toughest chaps you have?’

  ‘Ian Lewis for one,’ he said promptly. ‘Then it’s a toss-up between Taffy and Jim Taylor.’

  ‘Whoever it is must be good at unarmed combat.’

  ‘Then it’s Ian and Jim. Taffy’s the knife expert. Who do you want laid out?’

  ‘Paula Nelson will be in tomorrow, on the Eastern Sun. And this place is unhealthy for her. When it comes in I want you to go and meet her, because she’ll recognize you, and I want you to take the others along, collect her and bring her back here – unhurt. Anyone who tries anything is to be stepped on hard.’

  He listened carefully and then nodded. I knew she’d be in good hands.

  ‘Right. I’ll leave you to your own filthy devices, Geordie. We’ll want to get refitted so that we could leave almost any time, so warn the crew not to stray. Anyone who ends up in gaol stays there. I’m going to try for an interview with the Governor.’

  There was a lot of mail for Campbell at the main post office. He was back even before I went ashore, clutching a sheaf of papers and disappearing below with Clare. I hoped he’d let her out some time, and it occurred to me to ask her to dine with me that night. It would be nice not to eat surrounded by the others, but nicer still with Clare along. I collected a file from my cabin and set out for Government House, and discovered it to be a rambling edifice in Late Tropical Victorian set in a large garden.

  I had, as I expected to have, a royal tussle with batteries of underlings, secretaries and so forth, but I was persistent and was at long last shown to a room to await a summons for a brief meeting with the Governor. He was a tall, cadaverous man with a thin hairline moustache, sitting behind an imposing desk cluttered with papers. He did not rise but stretched his hand out to me across the table.

  ‘M. Trevelyan, what can I do for you? Please sit down.’

  I said, ‘Thank you for seeing me, Monsieur – er –’

  ‘My name is MacDonald,’ he said surprisingly, and smiled as he saw my expression. ‘It is always the same with you English – you cannot understand why I have a Scottish name – but you should know that one of Napoleon’s Marshalls was a MacDonald.’

  It appeared that this was one of his usual opening gambits with English visitors, so I said politely, ‘Are you any relation?’

  ‘My father thought so, but many Scots settled in France after the abortive revolutions in the eighteenth century. I, myself, do not think I am descended from a Marshall of France.’ He became more businesslike. ‘How can I help you, M. Trevelyan?’ His English was fluent, with hardly a trace of accent.

  I said, ‘About a year ago my brother died in the Tuamotus, on one of the smaller atolls. There appears to be some mystery about his death.’

  MacDonald raised his eyebrows. ‘Mystery, M. Trevelyan?’

  ‘Do you know anything about it?’

  ‘I am afraid I have no knowledge of the death of your brother. For one thing I am new here, and am merely the Acting Governor; the Governor of French Oceania is away on leave. And also one would not recall the details of every death, every incident in so large a jurisprudence as this one.’

  I wouldn’t describe my brother’s death, possibly his murder, as an incident myself; but no doubt the Governor would see it differently. I managed to express my disappointment without actually dismissing myself from his office, which had clearly been his wish, and he settled back to hear me out.

  ‘We will have something on the files,’ he said, and picked up a telephone. While he was speaking I opened my own file and sorted out documents.

  He replaced the receiver. ‘You spoke of some mystery, M. Trevelyan.’

  ‘Mark – my brother – died on an unnamed atoll. He was treated by a Dr Schouten who lives on an island called Tanakabu.’

  MacDonald pulled down his mouth. ‘Did you say Dr Schouten?’

  ‘Yes. Here is a copy of the death certificate.’ I passed a photostat across the desk and he studied it.

  ‘This seems to be quite in order.’

  I said sardonically, ‘Yes, it’s a well filled-in form. You note that it states that my brother died of peritonitis following an operation to remove a burst appendix.’

  MacDonald nodded. I was going to continue but I was interrupted by the appearance of a clerk who put a file on MacDonald’s desk. He opened it and scanned the contents, pausing halfway through to raise his head and look at me thoughtfully before bending his head again.

  At last he said, ‘I see the British Foreign Office asked for details. Here is the letter and my superior’s reply.’

  ‘I have copies of those,’ I said.

  He scanned the papers again. ‘All seems in order, M. Trevelyan.’

  I pushed another photostat across the desk. ‘This is an attested copy of a statement made by an English doctor to the effect that he removed my brother’s appendix several years ago.’

  It didn’t take for a moment and then suddenly it sank in. MacDonald started as though I’d harpooned him and picked up the photostat quickly. He read it several times and then put it down. ‘It looks as though Dr Schouten made a mistake then,’ he said slowly.

  ‘It seems so,’ I agreed. ‘What do you know about him?’

  MacDonald spread his hands. ‘I’ve never met him – he never comes to Tahiti, you understand. He is a Dutchman and has lived in the Islands for about twenty years, administering to the people of the Tuamotus group.’

  But I remembered his wry mouth and sensed that he knew more.

  ‘He has a problem, hasn’t he? Is he an alcoholic?’

  ‘He drinks, yes – but everyone does. I drink myself,’ said MacDonald in mild rebuke. He was not going to commit himself.

  ‘Is he a good doctor?’

  ‘There have never been any complaints.’

  I thought about Schouten, living in a remote group of islands far from the administrative centre of Papeete. Complaints about his professional capacity would have a way of dying on the vine, especially if most of his clientele were local people.

  I said, ‘Did Dr Schouten come to Papeete to report my brother’s death?’
>
  MacDonald consulted his file. ‘No, he didn’t. He waited until there was a convenient schooner and then sent a letter together with the death certificate. He would not leave his hospital for so long a journey for one death – there are many, you understand.’

  ‘So no one saw my brother except Dr Schouten and the two men who found him – and no one has made any investigation, no one has questioned Kane or Hadley or the doctor?’

  ‘You are wrong, M. Trevelyan. We are not standing in Hyde Park Corner in the midst of a modern civilized metropolis. The Tuamotus are many hundreds of miles away and we have but a small administrative staff – but I assure you that questions were asked. Indeed they were.’

  He leaned forward and asked coldly, ‘Are you aware, M. Trevelyan, that at the time of your brother’s death he was suspected of murder, and a fugitive from the police?’

  ‘I did hear that cock-and-bull story. It must have been convenient for your police department to have such a tidy closing of the case.’

  He didn’t like that and his eyes flickered. ‘Here in French Oceania we have a peculiar problem. The islands have an enviable reputation, that of an earthly paradise. Consequently, men are drawn here from all over the world, hoping to live in ease and comfort. They think they can live by eating the fruit from the trees and by building a little thatched hut. They are wrong. The cost of living here is as high as anywhere else in the world.

  ‘These men who come here are often, not always, the failures of civilization. Most go away when they find that the islands are not the paradise of reputation. Others stay to cause us trouble. Our work here is not to aid the degenerate sweepings, but to maintain the standard for our own people. And when an unknown white who is already in trouble dies we do not make too much fuss.’

  He tapped the file. ‘Especially when there is a valid death certificate, apparently in order, especially when we think he may be a murderer, and very especially when he evaded the Tahiti police and ran away to die on some atoll two hundred miles from here.’