Hogan ground his teeth, and swung his glances from one end of the clearing to the other. Log-drums. He had heard them before, but never so close, and never before with such savage intensity. He suddenly felt exposed and helpless and, with a quick nod to Jo Jo, almost ran back to the veranda.
All the afternoon the drums spoke and answered, questioned and threatened. And all the time Hogan sat waiting, the gun on his knees. He watched the sun move like a fiery ball across the sky and seem to touch the tips of the trees, and in its wake the shadows grew longer, so that it appeared as if the trees themselves were reaching out across the clearing, with great claws.
He had stared so hard, and for so long, that his eyes played him tricks. In the past he had been content to run his store and only take sufficient interest in the outside world as was required to pursue his living, and this sudden strain was beginning to tell on his fevered mind.
His head lolled, and he braced himself angrily, shaking his head like an old dog. For an instant he could not find his breath, and he gripped the shotgun until his knuckles shone white in his red hands.
Along the edge of the clearing stood a long line of silent brown figures. At that very moment the drums ceased.
Hogan’s mouth moved silently, and he heard Jo Jo’s foot beating frantically on the iron roof.
Half to himself he muttered: `So there you are! Christ, it must be the whole of the Mota.’ He tried to count the silent figures, but his wretched mind rebelled, and he could only stare and strain his eyes, as the sun glinted on a spear, or hovered on a painted face.
She was at his side again, and he could sense her frail body trembling. `What the hell are they waitin’ for?’ he said from between clenched teeth
The minutes dragged by, and Hogan moved carefully off his box and crawled laboriously on his knees across the room, so that he could cover the whole of the clearing. Without turning he said fiercely, `Get all that ammo from the desk, an’ drag it over ‘ere!’
The breeze grew stronger, and its hot breath moved insistently through the store, and chilled the sweat on his shirt and bent legs. His nostrils twitched, and for a second his eyes left the clearing. `Smoke? Is that smoke?’
He listened with despairing impatience as she ran from the room, and tried to concentrate on the motionless figures. Were they really still? Had the one by the old sawmill moved slightly? He licked his parched lips and moved the gun slightly.
She ran back to his side, her eyes looking past him.
`Well? What is it?’
She began to sob uncontrollably, something that she had never done before. `The boat! It is on fire!’
Hogan jerked to his feet, his eyes popping. `The bastards!’ His voice trembled. `They knew I’d be watchin’ ‘em! Somebody sneaked round the beach and fired the boat while I was bein’ a bloody fool an’ … an’ …’ He choked, and stared round the room, filled with a rising and consuming fury. ”Ere, watch the window!’ He ran to the back of the store, and looked stonily at the black pall of smoke which poured from the listing cutter. The breeze gathered up the smoke and pushed it towards the watchers on the edge of the clearing. As it passed over their heads they seemed to melt into the bush and vanish.
Jo Jo called down this information to Hogan, but he did not even look back. He knew that the attack would come later. It was now inevitable. His eye flickered to the end of the beach, and he saw a figure rise dripping from the surf and run naked for the cover of the bush. He blinked, and then, with a bellow, ran out into the clearing. The thundering reports of the shotgun echoed and rolled around the bay, and he staggered to a halt, his shoulder aching from the double recoil. The brown figure skidded in the sand, recovered, and staggered into the trees.
Hogan fumbled with the cartridges, and backed into the store. `Come on down, Jo Jo. You won’t do any more good up there.’
He dragged his feet across the littered floor, and squatted on the box, his face sagging. The cutter had always been there. It was his escape route, and now, like a fool, he had bungled even that.
He drew his fat knees up to his chin, and began to sob noisily. She crept to his side, and he felt her worn hands stroking his neck. Jo Jo stared from one to the other, and then with a vague grin began to crank the gramophone.
The sun crept guiltily away, and as the pale stars began to glitter, and the strengthening breeze beat the surf into a savage frenzy around the charred cutter, the strains of the `Anniversary Waltz’ floated across the empty clearing.
When the attack came, it was like a great wave of sound. A long-drawn-out scream echoed along the bay, and in that instant Hogan heard the slap of feet across the packed earth of the yard. He still could not see anything, but, panting like an exhausted runner, he fired both barrels across the veranda, and then ran with the other gun to the far window and fired again, while the woman reloaded with quick, deft movements.
A spear thudded into the floor, and he heard the swish and moan of short arrows as they flitted through the side windows. Jo Jo screamed and fell back on the floor, his throat transfixed with a thin black dart, his eyes rolling whitely as he tried to tear it free.
A naked leg swung over the veranda, heedless of the barbed wire, and Hogan’s terrified eyes saw the thin bangled arm and the crude axe swinging towards him. The gun roared again, and the man’s face seemed to blossom into a great scarlet flower. He heard another scream, and turned to see the woman pinioned by a writhing brown body, whilst on the other side of the living-room he saw a shadowy figure sliding rapidly along the wall.
God, God, they’re inside! They’re all round me! Hogan sobbed frantically, and fired at the shape by the wall. It curtsied towards him, and he saw the bared teeth, like those of an -animal, and the hideous paint mingling with the blood on his chest.
Hogan drove the butt of his rifle into the other savage’s head, but when the body rolled aside the woman did not rise to join him. Her black eyes stared up at him with sorrow and reproach, as her blood seeped across the old calendar, which had been torn from the wall.
Hogan swung from her, the gun ready to fire again, its barrels hot under his grip. He was again alone, but for the bodies which cast unreal shadows in the fading light.
Hogan staggered against the doorpost, his head reeling. `Come on then, you bastards!’ His voice cracked into a whimper of defiance. `Come an’ finish me off!’
He swung the gun, and moved out on to the veranda. One of the shapes by the steps moved slightly, and groaned. With savage dedication Hogan ground the butt down on to the clay-decorated head until all movement ceased. He could feel warm blood running down his arm, but he hardly noticed it. He lifted his head and listened, like a hound catching a scent. There it was again. A shot. Not far off either.
Muttering and growling to himself, he ran back to the room and, heedless of the sickly smell of death, he unlocked the chest, and with his teeth tore open a bottle and threw back his head. The gin flooded his throat so that he vomited, and leaned weakly on the edge of the box. I’m alive, he thought vaguely, and felt his limbs quivering uncontrollably, so that the gun shook in his hand. A footstep grated on the clearing, and he moved crabwise to the window, his eyes like small slits.
The two pale figures moved cautiously towards him, and Hogan could only kneel and stare.
He heard Fraser call out, his voice harsh, even desperate. `You about, Jim?’
Hogan still knelt, but he managed to wave his gun in a feeble gesture. He still couldn’t speak, as the two men ran across to his side. He was grateful just to be allowed time to think.
Fraser finished tying the rough bandage on Hogan’s thick arm, and sat back on his haunches, breathing heavily. `That feel better?’
He saw Hogan’s shoulders move in what might have been assent, or even vacant disinterest. He was merely a grey, shapeless blob outlined against the dark oblong of the veranda, and now that Fraser’s eyes were becoming better accustomed to the darkness he could see well enough what had changed Hogan so cruelly. He swa
llowed hard, and tried not to notice the sweet sickly smell which pervaded the store, and the two white eyeballs which stared up from the corner of the disordered room. He could hear Blair moving restlessly about the other room, and the impatient boom of distant surf.
His heart was still pounding like a drum, but slowly he was beginning to gather his scattered thoughts, and tried to fathom out what was happening. A sharp bang echoed hollowly through the store, and Hogan groaned.
Jo Jo?’ His voice was mere croak. `Was that Jo Jo?’ Then, as the awful memory flooded back, he struggled painfully to his feet and peered down at Fraser. `I was forgettin’,’ he added abstractedly.
The bang came again, and Fraser reached out to grip the other man’s wrist. `What is it?’
`The roof.’ He pointed vaguely. `The wind’s gettin’ up.’ Fraser bared his teeth, as if he was tasting the air. `That’s
all we need!’ He swore savagely. `And you say your boat’s
had it?’
The thick shoulders sagged even more. ‘Yeh. Gone, like everythin’ else.’
Fraser softened his voice. `You’ve got some cash in the bank, haven’t you?’
Hogan wandered across the room and stumbled over the twisted body by the wall. `Cash? What good is that now?’ He kicked suddenly at the body, and it stirred as if still alive. `The bastards!’
`Look, Jim, I must talk.’ Fraser’s voice was urgent. `We’ve not much time.’
`I know.’
`The weather°s gettin’ worse, Jim. We’ve got to get back to the ship. Now!’
In his mind’s eye he saw the Queensland Pearl already rolling towards the reef. He closed his eyes with despair. He had been a madman to allow Blair to talk him into this. Tarrou would never be able to rise to any real crisis without him on board.
A strange cry echoed around the darkness, followed by silence, and Hogan grabbed up his shotgun. Fraser listened to him jamming the fat cartridges into the breech.
`Can you guide us back, Jim?’ He tried to speak calmly,
but the urgency of the situation made his voice harsh. ‘We have to get away!’
Hogan wandered around the room, and Fraser’s heart sank. The shock of all this had been too much for him, he thought. I’m stuck with two of them now, he reflected bitterly.
But after a while Hogan answered, his voice devoid of emotion. `We can’t go back over the ridge. Too many of ‘em out there. We must follow the beach to the end of the bay, an’ then start climbin’ from there. It might work,’ he ended wearily.
`Yes, that’s it, Jim.’ He dropped his voice. `Listen, cobber, I know things are bad, but they might be worse.’ He peered at the shapeless figure before him. `Right now we’ve got to think of ourselves, see?’
Hogan pondered. `What about ‘im?’ He gestured to the other room.
Fraser swore obscenely. `It’s all his fault! Right now I could kill him with my bare hands!’
Hogan bent over the Chinese woman, and shuddered. He stood up again without touching her, and shook himself. ‘Nah, they attacked before you come ‘ere.’ He shook the gun in his hands. `What made ‘em do it, Vic?’
Fraser watched as Blair’s figure moved stealthily across the veranda. His fault, he repeated to himself. It was as if his presence on the island had sparked everything off at once. It was almost uncanny.
Blair stood over them. `Is he all right now?’
Hogan sighed. ‘Yeh. Let’s get on with it.’
Fraser stood up and crossed the room, so that his body was almost against Blair’s.
`An’ this time, Major, let me handle things. Just don’t start anything else, see?’ His voice trembled with fury, but Blair seemed to be indifferent.
`Don’t be a bigger fool than you can help, Fraser! Try to keep a sense of proportion!’ He could feel Fraser’s breath on his face.
`Don’t you tempt me, Major! I’m a simple enough character perhaps, but there’s somethin’ about you that’s all wrong!’ His arm moved slightly. `The boongs know it! We all know it!’
Hogan shifted his feet. `Lay off, Vic. ‘E’s done nothin’!T ‘An’ he’s not going to do any more either!’ Fraser’s voice was filled with menace.
Blair shrugged. `Let’s stop arguing. It’s too late now, anyway.’ He picked up his rifle and walked to the rear door, apparently dismissing them from his mind.
The breeze dropped, and as its sigh died away there were in its place a series of short hard raps on the iron roof, and the dust on the darkened veranda was kicked up into little spurts, as the first of the rain began to fall. Then, in an instant, the downpour came in an ever-mounting roar, deafening, blinding, as if to cleanse the earth of its evil.
Fraser made up his mind. `Now, Jim!’ He shook his arm. `Before the bastards creep up again!’
Hogan still hung back. His senses deadened by the storm, he stared round with sudden desperation at all that was left of his life. `I can’t leave ‘er like that. I’ll put a match to the place.’
Fraser’s voice hardened. `What good would that do? The flames would give us away and, in any case, the bloody rain’d put the fire out before it did any good! Leave her, man. She’s past your help now.’
Blair spoke quietly, so that his voice was all but lost in the tropical downpour. `Do as he says, Hogan. Can’t you see he’s got the wind up?’
Fraser stood quivering like a mad dog. What was Blair trying to do? It was almost as if he was trying to goad Fraser to keep his threat. `I’m warning you …’ he began, but Blair turned away.
Over his shoulder he said: `Use your brains, if you’ve got any. There’s more in this than just a local whim!’
Hogan blundered past them and walked heavily across the veranda. `Come on, then.’
`Aren’t you taking anything with you?’ Fraser looked round quickly, furious with himself and with Hogan for making him sound so callous.
`I got me guns, and me wallet. What more could a joker want?’ Without another glance he tugged on his old hat, and bowed his shoulders against the rain, which struck the flesh like iron pellets.
The hard earth, parched and split, was already puddled and unfamiliar beneath their feet, and Fraser hung back momentarily as the two figures preceded him down to the beach. The rain might last for hours, or it might not. Then the wind would come back. He glared fixedly at the thundering surf, and felt its taste in the rain. If the island was going mad, anything could happen. And if the schooner broke her moorings before he could get to her … He clamped his jaws tight and stared at Blair’s back, his big hands closing over the rifle. I’ll kill the bastard, that’s for sure, he thought brokenly.
7
HIGH on the schooner’s mainmast a block clattered with sudden urgency, and the carelessly sheeted piece of a sail filled and flapped with a dull boom, as without warning the breeze spread out across the reef and explored the more sheltered region of the bay. The water, which up to then had been undulating and sighing gently around the schooner’s high stem, lost its oily surface and was whipped into a series of steep, dancing catspaws. The vessel seemed to awake from her dream, and as she rolled heavily at her cable the torrid air moaned threateningly through the shrouds, to tease the wire stays and loose rigging alike.
Gillian stopped listening to the muffled insistence of the distant drums and stared round with sudden irritation at the deserted decks. Blair and Fraser had only been gone for about an hour, and the glare of the sun was only a promise of the heat which was to follow. Yet the sudden inactivity and sense of frustration which their departure had brought, as well as the heavy apathy of the bay, made her frown, and pace nervously from one side of the swinging poop to the other.
Dinkila, the fat Malay cook, his shapeless body half hidden by the coaming around the hold, looked up with interest from his efforts to scour a cooking-pot to watch the slim figure pacing the deck. He saw her wince as she stepped into the sun, and when she reached the safety of the billowing canopy her hair seemed to change colour, and she would run her finger
s through it, as if to free herself from the clinging heat. Eventually, his slant eyes tired, and the pot dropped in his lap. Soon his gentle snore floated upwards to join the noises of the spiralling masts.
Gillian threw her cigarette over the rail and plucked broodingly at her damp blouse. With narrowed eyes she stared across at the blue-tinted headland, where the haze hung like smoke, and the steep sides of the cliffs were still dark in shadow and not yet reached by the sun.
Why wait until tomorrow? she reflected. The dinghies bobbed and squeaked alongside, and she had already noted that the smaller of the two was rigged for sailing. The hot breeze played invitingly around her waist and moved across the bare skin beneath the loose blouse. She was suddenly tempted to strip off these ridiculous clothes and dive into the inviting water. She sighed, as after a brief search she found the ever-present triangle of dark fin, as it moved with infinite patience around the haltered ship.
A hatch banged open, and Watute clambered into view. He tossed some rubbish over the lee rail and stood looking at the green shore, his black eyes devoid of interest or understanding.
Gillian loosened the belt of her coral slacks, her mouth determined. `Say, how far d’you reckon we are from the headland there?’
Watute followed her finger blankly, and then grinned. `Long way.’ He beamed unhelpfully.
She tried again. `Can you sail that thing?’
He shifted his eyes from the headland to the dinghy. `Sure thing, missy! Cap’n Fraser show me many times!’
She smiled. `Good. That’s settled, then. Can we sail to that place and back today?’
He gave it a great deal of thought, although Gillian had the impression that he was putting on an act for her benefit.
`We make good trip, missy,’ he said with sudden gravity.
`We back ‘fore night.’
She sighed with relief. `Good. You can take me, then. I’ll just get my camera.’
`I ask if we can go,’ added Watute stubbornly. `Captain say not go unless say so.’
The Hostile Shore Page 11