‘Do we abandon the masts?’ Hal asked the captain.
‘No. We’ll tow ‘em to Ponape. We can get them restepped there.’
And so, with a roughly repaired rudder, her proud sails replaced by a chugging engine, her masts dragging behind her, the unlively lady limped on to Ponape.
Chapter 9
Into the lost world
Now they were in little-known seas. Even Captain Dee Flint had never been here before. They saw no ships, for the regular ship lanes lie far to the north and south.
Between the two world wars this part of the Pacific had been governed by the Japanese. They had jealously barred all ships but their own from its waters. Its 2,500 islands had no contact with the outside world except through Japan. Non-Japanese travellers visited them at risk of their lives.
And it was still a shut-away world in spite of the fact that it had been taken from Japan in World War II and was now governed by the United States as a trust under the United Nations.
Boys of the U.S. Navy stationed here felt as if they had been marooned on the moon. So it was with some excitement that they saw a strange craft enter the harbour of Ponape. They were going to have visitors!
Their excitement was shared by the visitors who were eager to step from the deck of the limping lady to the shores of the loveliest island they had yet seen.
‘Isn’t it a beauty!’ exclaimed Hal, looking at the white reef, the blue lagoon inside it, and, inside that, the towering green skyscraper of an island. Its wildly picturesque mountains were dressed with groves of coconut palms, spreading mango trees, giant banyans, and hundreds of unknown varieties bearing brilliant flowers or heavy fruit. The old Spaniards were right - they had called this ‘the garden island’.
And, unlike the low coral atolls, it evidently got plenty of rain. The high peaks invited storms. Even now around lofty Totolom peak there roared a black thunderstorm pierced with yellow shafts of lightning.
‘Gosh!’ said Roger, his eyes popping. ‘They talk about Tahiti and Samoa and all that. Are they really any better than this?’
‘Not near as fine,’ declared Captain Ike, who had seen them.
‘Then why do we never hear about this - gee, I don’t even know how to pronounce it…’
‘Po-nah-PAY is the way they say it. You don’t hear about it because mighty few people have ever been here.’
‘Look at Gibraltar!’ cried Roger.
It did look like Gibraltar. But according to the chart it was the Rock of Chokach. It loomed 900 feet high over the harbour, its basaltic cliffs falling away so steeply as to defy climbers.
Through a gap in the reel the dismasted schooner put-putted her way into the harbour. The lagoon was sprinkled with fairy islands. Between two of them, charming Takatik and Langar, Captain Ike dropped anchor in ten fathoms. The chart indicated dangerous shallows near shore.
There were no craft in the harbour except fishing boats and a few naval AJCs and L.S.T.s. There was one plane to be seen - a tired-looking Catalina.
From the town of Ponape which nestled on a point of the mainland a launch put out. It came alongside and a smart young naval officer climbed on board. He made himself known as Commander Tom Brady, Deputy Military Governor of Ponape. ‘You evidently got a taste of the hurricane.’ he said. ‘More than a taste,’ admitted Captain Ike. ‘Did you feel it here?’
‘Luckily it slid by to the north of us. But one of our supply ships was in its path.’ ‘What happened?’
‘It went down - all five thousand tons of it. It’s a miracle that this little eggshell came through on top.’
Captain Ike proudly surveyed his battered schooner. ‘Pretty stout little ship! Is there a place here where we can get her repaired?’ ‘Right around in the shipyard.’
‘You’ll want to see her papers,’ said Captain Ike, producing them. ‘And how about port charges?’
Commander Tom Brady laughed. ‘Don’t worry about that. We don’t have enough visitors to have to levy port charges. You’re the first, outside of Navy, in six months. How long do you stay?’
‘That’s for Mr Hunt to say. He’s the master of this expedition.’
‘Not long,’ Hal said. ‘While the captain is having the ship repaired I’d like to hire a motor-boat and make a little side trip - out to some of the small islands.’
There was a moment’s silence. Brady seemed to be waiting for more details. But Hal had no intention of disclosing the nature of his errand to Pearl Lagoon, especially in the presence of witnesses. ‘Fine,’ said Brady, accepting the situation, ‘We’ll get you a boat. But just now I know you’d all like to get ashore. Pile into the launch.’
The captain, Roger, and Omo boarded the launch. Hal was about to follow them when the captain said, ‘Where’s Crab?’
‘I’ll find him,’ said Hal, and went forward. Crab was not in the forecastle. Hal returned aft and went down to look in the storeroom. Crab was not there. A rustling attracted his attention and he opened the door to his and Roger’s cabin.
There was Crab, rummaging through Hal’s notebooks and papers.
‘What are you doing here?’ Hal asked sharply.
‘Nothing. Nothing at all,’ Crab sullenly answered, and pushed past Hal out of the door and up the companionway. Hal followed him and they both dropped aboard the launch without another word.
But Hal was thinking hard. Crab must have been looking for information about the pearl island. Evidently he was in with the plotters who had searched Professor Stuyvesant’s papers and threatened his life. They had put him aboard the Lively Lady to get the information that they had failed to get.
There was no use making a scene over it. But Hal knew that whoever went with him to Pearl Lagoon, it would not be Crab, and when the Lively Lady sailed again Crab would not be a member of the crew.
The town of Ponape consisted mainly of Japanese stores and houses built by the Japanese during the thirty years they had held the island. In the outskirts were the thatch homes of native brown Ponapeans.
Brady led the way to a Japanese house on the edge of a bluff with a magnificent view across the harbour to the towering Rock of Chokach.
‘This is yours for as long as you want it,’ he said. ‘Make yourselves at home.’
It was pleasant to lie at full length on the clean golden-yellow mats and look out over the blue lagoon dotted with green islets and the white sails of fishing boats, to the big rock backed by mountains thousands of feet high from whose cliffs tumbled silvery waterfalls.
‘It’s a sort of paradise,’ said Hal.
But a worm of anxiety crept into his pleasure when he noticed that his party was one man short. Crab had again disappeared. What was that rascal up to now?
Chapter 10
The pearl trader
There was only one business street in the town and Crab had no difficulty in finding the Post Exchange.
He went in and looked about as if he had an appointment to meet someone here. A big man with a slight hunch in his back came towards him.
He did not smile or offer to shake hands. He only said gruffly:
‘What took you so long? I saw your ship come in and I’ve been waiting here for half an hour.’ He cast a suspicious glance at the clerk. ‘Let’s get out of here - go some place where we can talk.’
They went out into the street and turned at the next corner into a quiet lane. It wound away towards the hills between thatch huts set in lush gardens from which came the perfume of jasmine, frangipani, cinnamon, and aloes. Crab and his companion walked under a huge breadfruit tree from which hung fruits almost as big as footballs. They passed dozens of strange plants and trees - it was like going through a botanical garden.
The people were as fine as the trees. The men were more than six feet tall and powerful muscles rippled under their brown skins. Women wore white flowers in their hair. The babies were fat and cheerful. One of them sat in the road directly in the path of the big man. It laughed up at him.
He scooped it u
p with his foot and gave it a fling into the bushes, whereupon it broke into a loud wail.
Crab grew more and more nervous. It was evident that the man was in a bad temper. What Crab had to tell him would not make him any happier.
They came to a European-style house in a garden of orange and lemon trees, mangosteens, pomegranates, and peacock palms.
The man flung open the door and took Crab into a musty parlour. Two Ponapean servants promptly appeared - a woman who arranged the chairs and a man who asked in broken English whether master would like to have drinks. ‘Get out of here!’ roared the big man. ‘Get out, both of you!’ He helped them with a push or two and slammed the door after them.
‘Dirty scum!’ he said savagely. ‘Curse their brown hides. If I was Uncle Sam I’d wipe ‘em all clean off the island.’
He motioned Crab to sit down and took a chair facing him. He drew it close and leaned forward until his eyes were not two feet from Crab’s. His hunched back gave him the appearance of a crouching lion about to spring.
‘All right, out with it!’ he snapped. ‘Did you get the bearings?’
Crab could hardly breathe. He must stall for time. ‘It was a hard job you gave me. I did my best. I listened in on him and his kid brother too but they never said anything. I went through all their things …’
‘Never mind all that. Did you get the location of the island?’ ‘Can’t say that I did but…’
He got no farther. A crashing blow from the big man’s fist spun his head backwards, overturned his chair, and left him in a half-conscious heap on the floor. He got up shakily, dabbing at his bleeding nose. ‘You’ll be sorry for that, Kaggs.’
‘You threaten me?’ said the man called Kaggs, looming over Crab like a cliff about to fall upon his head. Looking down. Crab saw that the big man’s hand held a revolver. He dropped back.
‘1 didn’t mean anything, Mr Kaggs.’
For which he got a clout on the head with the butt of the gun. ‘Shut up! Don’t use my name. I don’t intend anybody to know me here.’
‘Not know you? Why everybody knows you’re the biggest pearl trader from Thursday Island to the Sulu Sea.’
‘Down there they know. Not up here. Nobody thinks pearls up here. And these navy kids - what do they know about the Pacific? Most of them are just fresh out of school.’
‘So if you aren’t Merlin Kaggs - the crookedest pearl trader south of the equator - just who are you?’
The big man straightened slightly and nearly allowed a smile to take over his face. ‘I am, if you please, the Reverend Archibald Jones. I am a missionary of the Go-Ye-Forth Church of America. I have flown here from San Francisco bearing glad tidings to the heathen of these benighted islands.’
Crab snorted. ‘How can you make anybody believe you’re a missionary? You, with two murders and a spell in San Quentin to your credit!’
‘You’d be surprised, my friend. Even the devil can quote Scripture to his purpose. You see, my old man was a clergyman. I went to Sunday-school until it came out of my ears. I can quote the Bible like nobody’s business. Perhaps my quotes aren’t always letter perfect, but who’s going to know that? My folks even started to make a preacher out of me. And don’t you believe I wouldn’t have made a good one. In prison I supplied the pulpit when the Reverend wasn’t able to make it. I did pretty well too. No complaints from the parishioners.’
‘But why the masquerade?’ Crab inquired.
Kaggs’ good humour disappeared. ‘You ought to know,’ he growled. ‘I suspected you’d flop on this job. So I had to be ready to take over.’
‘You mean you’re going to play up to Hunt?’
‘Sure. He’s a good, God-fearing young man. He’ll appreciate a gentleman of my qualities. I’ll find a way to get what I want out of him. Don’t forget that I know a lot already. I had the place wired. I heard every word he and Stuyvesant said to each other. Only trouble is, they were mum about the bearings. Then I followed his visitors when they went away. Out into the country, to the Hunt Animal Farm. That’s how I learned their name was Hunt. From there on it was easy - just a job of follow-up. And if you’d done your part of it right we’d be in the clover now.’
He slipped his revolver back into the shoulder holster under his coat and motioned Crab towards’ the door. ‘You can get along now. I’ve no more time to waste on you.’
But Crab did not move. ‘Aren’t you forgetting something?’ ‘Forgetting what?’ ‘To pay me.’
Kaggs bristled. ‘Pay you - for what? You made a botch i of it. For all I know you got Hunt suspicious. I ought to charge you - not pay you. Now get out of here before I break you in two.’ He made a lunge at Crab.
‘I’ll go,’ whined Crab, making for the door. Only when he had opened it and stood halfway out of it did he feel safe to say, ‘You’ll be sorry. Don’t forget I can spoil your little game. I’m going to see Hunt right now.’
Kaggs’ face darkened as his hand moved instinctively towards his gun. But it stopped halfway. Kaggs was thinking fast. Crab was right - he could spill the beans. Kaggs must stop him, but how? A killing in broad daylight wouldn’t do. A hundred people would hear the shot. Even if he paid Crab something he couldn’t be sure that the sneak would keep his mouth shut. No, there must be a better way.
His crafty face took on a look that was almost genial. ‘Come to think of it,’ he said, ‘guess I’ve been a little too hard on you. After all, you did your best. No man can do more. Okay, I’ll play ball with you. And I’m going to start right now by treating you to drinks. Come with me.’
Crab regarded this sudden change of heart with suspicion, but the appeal of flowing liquor was too much for him.
He accompanied Kaggs. They returned to the mam street, then branched off towards the bluff. Crab grew apprehensive for they seemed to be going straight towards the house occupied by the Hunt party.
But across the road from the house was a small liquor shop, and here Kaggs turned in.
He pushed through a group of Ponapean men resting under the trees after their early morning fishing and entered the door of the shop. A seedy-looking white man was behind the counter.
‘Tony,’ said Kaggs, ‘here’s a good friend of mine. Just arrived. I want to treat him to a drink. A lot of drinks.’
‘Always glad to serve,’ said Tony. ‘I know how you feel. Must be nice to have a visitor in this God-forsaken place.’
‘Makes me want to celebrate,’ said Kaggs, glancing out of the window. ‘I’d like my friend to have a real party. Crab, invite those fellows in. We’ll set ‘em up for everybody.’
‘You can’t do that.’ said Tony hastily. ‘It’s against the law to likker up the brown people.’
‘The law!’ scoffed Kaggs. He produced a wad of paper money and waved it in Tony’s face. ‘Here’s the law. Invite ‘em in, Crab.’
Crab had no interest in entertaining Ponapeans, but if Kaggs wanted to pay for it, why not? He stepped out of the door and motioned to the men. He raised an imaginary glass to his lips. The fishermen were not slow in crowding into the shop.
Liquor is like dynamite to a Ponapean. Even without it he is one of the most warlike of Pacific islanders. With it, he goes wild. Because of this fact the sale or gift of liquor to natives was strictly forbidden.
‘There’s only one way I can do this,’ said Tony to Kaggs. ‘I can sell the liquor to you - and you’ll have to take the responsibility for giving it to the Ponapeans.’
‘Sure.’ said Kaggs heartily. ‘Say twenty dollars’ worth of your hottest stuff. Here, Crab, it’s your party,’ and he pressed a twenty-dollar bill into the seaman’s hand. Crab passed it over to Tony.
‘Okay,’ said Tony. ‘Now if you’ll just sign this receipt.’
‘For what?’ grumbled Crab.
‘For the liquor - just to show I sold it to you. That puts me in the clear.’
Crab, anxious to get on with the real business of drinking, signed the receipt. He looked around for Kaggs, but the gentlema
n had disappeared.
Two hours later Hal and Roger were distracted from their contemplation of the beauties of nature by wild shouts on the other side of the house.
Captain Ike had gone back to the ship. Omo was in the kitchen exercising his skill as a cook. ‘Omo,’ called Hal. ‘Go out and see what’s doing.’ Omo went out. He came back in a moment to announce breathlessly, ‘A riot. Crab He’s been arrested.’
Hal and Roger tumbled out into the road. A dozen drunken Ponapeans milled about. Two were bleeding from knife wounds. Far down the road they saw Crab reeling in the firm grip of two naval police.
At one side of the road stood a tall man with a slight hunch in his back. He held a black book in his hand.
He strolled over to join Hal. ‘Very unfortunate incident,’ he said. ‘Very unfortunate.’ His pitying gaze embraced the group of befuddled Ponapeans. ‘What happened?’ asked Hal.
‘That seaman plied them with liquor. A violation of the laws of God and man. Only another of the many afflictions that have been visited upon the innocent folk of these lovely islands!’
Hal looked after the retreating form of Crab. ‘Who notified the police?’ he asked.
‘I did,’ said the stranger. ‘I considered it my duty as a citizen and as a missionary.’
Hal noticed that the small black book in the man’s hand was a Bible. How fortunate that the Ponapeans had a man of this sort to defend their interests.
‘What will he get for it?’ he asked.
‘Too little,’ sighed the missionary. ‘Perhaps sixty days in jail - then possibly deportation to the States.’
Hal’s impulse was to go to Crab’s aid. Then he reflected that nothing better than this could possibly have happened. Crab was his enemy. He was in the plot against him and Professor Stuyvesant. So long as he was on the loose he was dangerous. In jail he could do no more harm. This was a stroke of luck.
02 South Sea Adventure Page 6