My brain went round and round, chewing at it like a mincing machine, like the echo-sounder interminably making its trace. Periodically I stood watching it, half mesmerised – 22 fathoms, 21, 24, 18, 20 … and then I would go out on to the bridge wing, take a bearing with the hand compass on the Double Island light, now barely showing above the horizon. And all the time my mind half occupied with strange thoughts that gradually resolved themselves into the conviction that what had happened to the Holland Trader would happen to the Perenna, that we’d mysteriously disappear to become a ghost ship, a latter-day Flying Dutchman damned for ever to steam the South West Pacific, always heading for Bougainville and the Buka Passage, but never making it. Lost in the Coral Sea – 19 fathoms, 20, 18, 17 … I was back at the echo-sounder but couldn’t remember how I got there. A coral reef? But that would have left her a wreck with at least her mast and her upper works showing. A volcanic disturbance? That would account for it. And there was a volcano on Bougainville, something about Rabaul also; hadn’t it been half destroyed about the turn of the century? Or the sea cocks, perhaps they had been opened, in error, or purposely. There could have been an explosion in the engine-room, boilers bursting, something that had blown a hole in her bottom. But the stamps. And that cover. There would have been a letter inside it. What the hell had it said? To get that stamp, the man must have been on board the ship, and I wondered whether that half-breed aborigine up in Cooktown still had the letter or could remember what it said. Even if he couldn’t read, his mother might have told him. I wished Perenna Holland were here. So many questions, and the need of somebody to talk to, somebody to share the half-formed fears that had begun to take root in my imagination.
‘Lait, Kepten.’
I turned, peering vaguely towards the helmsman, my eyes barely open, my thoughts still confused. ‘Where? On the port bow?’ But the Sandy Cape light was still 50 miles away.
‘Lukluk!’ He was pointing to starboard.
I saw it then, two tiny pinpoints widely separated. A ship south-bound down the coast. I noted it in the log, and the time, which was 03.47. Only another thirteen minutes before I called Holland. Watching the slowly changing bearing of that ship gave me something to occupy my mind, and ten minutes later I went to Holland’s cabin and gave him a shake. He started up abruptly, his eyes looking wild. ‘What is it? What’s happened?’
‘Your watch,’ I said.
He shook his head, smiling thinly, his hair hanging over his eyes limp with sweat. ‘Dreaming.’ He pushed his hand up over his face. ‘I dreamed we were aground and then … ’ He shook his head again. ‘What’s the time?’
‘Just coming up to o-four-hundred.’
He nodded. ‘I’ll be glad of some air.’ He swung his legs off the bunk and sat there staring at me. ‘You all right?’
‘Tired, that’s all. Everything’s okay. We’re in seventeen fathoms with the coast about eight miles off.’ I left him then, and a few minutes later he came into the wheelhouse, his hair slicked back and looking fresher. The helmsman had already been relieved and I didn’t linger.
Back in my cabin I didn’t bother to switch on the light, undressing quickly, dumping my clothes on the foot of the bunk. And then, as I went to get into it, my bare feet stumbled against something on the floor. I just managed to save myself, cursing, my hand on the bunk and something moving under it. Then the bunk reading light went on, and I was standing there in my vest and pants, staring at her stupidly. She was sitting up, the orange-red hair falling across her face, her eyes blinking in the light. ‘Sorry if I startled you.’ She wasn’t wearing much, some sort of a slip, and she was smiling a little uncertainly. ‘I borrowed your bunk. I was a bit tired. I hope you don’t mind.’
I shook my head, still feeling dazed. It was her bag I had stumbled against. ‘How did you get here? You weren’t at the beach.’
‘Yes, I was. I was on that first truck. You talked to the driver, remember? I kept low because I was afraid Jona would send me ashore if he knew.’
‘You were taking a chance with a man like that,’ I muttered, remembering the hard-bitten face, that crack about a harem. She laughed and shook her head, her hand reaching up to a leather thong round her neck. ‘How did you persuade him to smuggle you on board?’
I don’t know what she replied, I was too astonished at the sight of her sitting up in my bunk, the freckled face still flushed with sleep, her hair a tousled mop, and dangling from its thong like a barbaric pendant between those thrusting breasts a native knife in a worn leather sheath. ‘I was quite safe, you see.’ She was smiling at me. ‘You look almost as shocked as that Aussie driver.’ She slipped it back and said in that husky voice, ‘Buka isn’t quite the same as Aldeburgh, you know.’ She pulled the coverings back, shifting herself close against the partition. ‘Come on. You’d better get some sleep. You’re almost dead on your feet.’
‘I’ll take one of the blankets and kip down in the wardroom,’ I told her.
‘No. That would look odd.’ She didn’t want her brother to know she was on board until we were clear of the coast. I was looking around, wondering where else I could put myself in that tiny cabin when she said, ‘Don’t be silly. Are you afraid I’ll seduce you? You look too tired for that. I know I am. I worked till I dropped on that cruise ship, every day an endless delay, thinking of Tim all the time, wondering … And the men on board,’ she added, seeing me still hesitating, ‘I’ve had all the men I need for the moment.’
The brazenness of her admission shocked me more than the knife. ‘You mean you’ve been sleeping—’ I checked myself. It was none of my business who she slept with. ‘I’m sorry.’
She laughed, an angry snort. ‘What did you expect on a cruise?’ Her tone was one of contempt. ‘And after being cooped up in that house, I’d have had every justification – except that I had other things on my mind.’ She patted the bunk. ‘Now come on. You look silly standing there in your underclothes.’
There was just room on the bunk, and she had no intention of vacating it. I was too tired to argue. I got in beside her and was instantly aroused by the warmth of her body close against my back. ‘I haven’t thanked you,’ she said. I could feel her hair against the back of my neck, the soft whisper of her breath, and I thought she said something about her brother, but I lost it, my brain gone blank, my body tumbling into sleep.
When I woke, sunlight was streaming in through the porthole, and somebody was calling, ‘Breakfast.’ I sat up, and there she was, fully clothed, opening the door. McAvoy came in with a tray, his hands trembling and the cups rattling. He put it down on the shelf table, then looked at me, his bloodshot eyes creased up in his wizened face. ‘I wouldn’t be doing this for anyone but Perenna, you understand.’ He turned to her. ‘He’s asleep now, so you can move around the ship without his knowing. By the time he wakes for his midday meal we’ll be a good twenty miles clear of the coast. You can tell him then.’
‘Is that far enough?’ she asked.
‘Aye. He’ll not go twenty miles back on his tracks. It’d cost him too much in fuel.’ He hesitated. ‘Do you want anything in your coffee, to perk you up?’
She shook her head, smiling at him. ‘Thank you, Mac.’ And she added, ‘It takes me back, seeing you. It really does – reminds me of the good things. Thank you for the breakfast. And I’m so glad to find you’re still with him.’
He didn’t say anything, nodding dumbly and staring at her with those watery blue eyes. Then he seemed to pull himself together, starting for the door, but pausing with it half open. ‘Last time you were at Madehas wasn’t so good. Let’s hope it’s better this time.’ The way he said it he seemed to be sounding some sort of warning.
‘That man,’ she said when the door had closed behind him, ‘he used to be skipper on one of my grandfather’s schooners. I’ve known him all my life.’ She handed me a plate of bacon and eggs, and then, as she was pouring the coffee, she said, ‘When we were children, we’d go down to Port Moresby and he’d be the
re waiting for us. Every year we’d sail to Madehas, the whole family, all except my father, of course. He was running Kuamegu. I used to look forward to those voyages. We’d be anything up to a week at sea, sometimes more, putting in at all sorts of places. And when I was bigger, I was allowed to join my brothers on trading runs through the Solomons, to Choiseul, Santa Isabel and New Georgia, once as far as Guadalcanal and San Cristóbal. And always with Pat McAvoy. My grandfather wouldn’t allow me to sail with anybody but Mac. He was the best skipper he had. I didn’t mind the stink of the copra. I was most of the time on deck anyway. I even slept on deck. It was marvellous lying there, watching the sails against the stars on a hot tropical night.’
I couldn’t make up my mind whether she was talking to cover her embarrassment that we’d spent the night together in the same bunk, or because she was nervous at the prospect of meeting her brother. ‘What about school?’ I asked. ‘Presumably you went to school in Australia.’
She shook her head, the cap of orange hair brilliant in the sunlight slanting in through the cabin porthole. ‘Jona was educated at a boarding school in Sydney. Tim followed three years later. But I never had any proper schooling. Mother was my teacher. That’s probably why we were so close. And there was a Mission not far away. That helped. Then, of course, I read a lot. My grandfather had a very good library.’ She paused, sitting in the chair there, her head bent over her coffee, lost in thought. ‘It was a marvellous life, so free. And the Chimbu village was quite near so that I grew up with their children, looking after the pigs and cassowaries, attending their sing-sings, learning how to shoot with bow and arrow, how to throw knives, spears, axes, and at the Mission how to nurse the sick, how to keep accounts and barter for trade.’ She gave a little laugh. ‘You know, I sometimes think I had a far better education than my brothers. What’s the use of learning to read if you aren’t given the right books, or doing algebra when you’ve no experience of trading? And ball games, football, for instance, that’s no substitute for the real thing – two fight leaders in armed combat with their supporters behind them, all roaring encouragement.’ She looked at me, smiling. ‘Remember, when you came to Aldeburgh, I said I was born to colour and excitement. I don’t think you believed me, but I really did have a very full, very exciting childhood.’ And she added, ‘It didn’t exactly prepare me for all the time I had to spend in that dull little seaside town.’
‘And now?’ I asked.
‘Now …?’ She hesitated, her mouth hardening, the crease-lines deepening. ‘How long will it be, before we get there? Four days?’
I nodded. ‘About four.’
‘Ships,’ she murmured, draining her coffee and getting to her feet. ‘I love them. And this is mine, partly mine. But they’re so slow. In that aircraft, I felt I was moving then, getting there fast. But now – four days! Do you think he’ll let me send a cable? By radio. All this time … I don’t even know whether Tim’s still alive.’ And then she added, her hands clenched, ‘Yes, I do. I’d know if Tim were dead. I’d know it instantly.’
She had turned and was looking out of the porthole. ‘Strange! Tim, that house – now, with the sea out there sparkling in the sun, and the warmth, the sense of movement, it seems like another world, another life … so far away, almost unreal. But it is real, isn’t it?’ Her hands were clasped together, the fingers locked tight. ‘All those years – Father dying, then Tim …’ Her voice faded, and she stood silent for a moment, her eyes staring out at the sea with great fixity, as though by concentration she could leap the distance of half a world and talk with her brother. Suddenly she turned to me, a quick gesture of the hands, and smiling now. ‘I’m sorry. I haven’t thanked you. First you got me the money; then you told me how to find the ship. I can’t tell you what it meant to me. Those weeks on the Lemnos, struggling towards Buka … It’s there, you see, on Buka Island, whatever it is that’s killing Tim. And I hadn’t the money, no hope of getting there before—’ She gave an awkward little shrug. ‘I tried to thank you last night, but you were asleep.’ Her lips spread in a smile, a conscious effort. ‘You went out, just like that.’ She clicked her fingers almost gaily. ‘More coffee?’ She reached for the pot. ‘Four days! I’m going to try and relax now. Nothing I can do will get us there any sooner.’ She was refilling my cup. ‘I had no idea those stamps could be worth so much.’
I told her briefly how their value had escalated, about my visit to Josh Keegan, but I don’t think she took it in. ‘Where did your brother get them?’ I asked. But she didn’t know. She was back at the porthole then, staring out at the water, and it was only when I produced the letter the stamp dealer in Sydney had given me that she showed any real interest. ‘Lewis?’ She had turned, frowning in concentration. ‘Didn’t you say Carlos Holland had those ship’s stamps specially printed? That means the father of that abo was on board the Holland Trader with him.’ She looked down at the letter. ‘Cooktown. And you were in Queensland. I wish you’d gone up there.’
‘I hadn’t time.’
‘No, of course not. But to have killed a man called Holland. Black Holland. It’s such a coincidence. Do you think he still has his father’s letter?’
‘I doubt it.’
‘But you said the dealer only received the envelope.’
‘The aborigine’s mother was dead. I don’t imagine he kept the letter.’
‘But if he had … It’s so strange. I’ll ask Mac whether my grandfather ever said anything about that mine. The Dog Weary gold mine. You can just imagine a man at the end of a long trek into the Australian outback calling it Dog Weary. Or perhaps there were two of them.’ She was silent then, thinking it over. ‘I’ve often wondered where Carlos got the money to buy a steamship. A gold mine would explain it.’ She laughed, handing me back the letter and turning to the porthole again. ‘I can still see the coast.’ And then she asked about her brother. ‘How is he?’ And when I didn’t answer, she said, ‘You’ve been standing in on the night watches. You must have formed some impression.’
‘He’s tired,’ I said. ‘We’re both tired.’
‘Yes, I know.’ Her voice was sharper. ‘But that doesn’t explain why he radioed advising me to stay with my aunt in Perth. He didn’t want me on board, and he didn’t want me in Buka – why?’
I hesitated. But it wasn’t for me to tell her he was scared of something. ‘You’re part owner of this ship, aren’t you?’
She nodded.
‘Maybe that’s the trouble.’
‘The ship’s still losing money, is it?’
‘I think so.’ And then I asked her about the partner her brother had gone in with. ‘D’you know anything about him?’
‘Yes.’ Her face had suddenly altered, the jaw clenched, the lips a tight line and her eyes coldly staring. ‘What’s Hans got to do with it?’
‘He seems to handle the business end, and I thought perhaps—’ I left it at that, shocked at the violence of her reaction, standing there staring straight at me, gripping hold of the back of the chair so tight that her knuckles showed white.
‘He should never have gone in with Hans Holland,’ she said in that husky voice, her mouth clenched tight. ‘I knew it wasn’t right. Tim was against it, and that day when—’ She shook her head, her eyes very wide. ‘But Jona came over to England specially. He talked Father into it. Said the sins of the fathers shouldn’t be visited on the children, that Hans and he were another generation, and if they wanted to join forces and build a new Holland Line together, the past of the two families shouldn’t be thrown in their faces. I haven’t seen Jona since.’
‘And what were the sins?’ I asked.
She let go of the chairback and turned to stare out at the sea again. ‘I’m not sure. It was something that happened during the war, but Grandpa wouldn’t talk about that – ever. Nor would Mac. All Grandpa ever told me was that Hans’s father handed the Holland schooners over to the Japanese.’
‘A collaborator?’
She nodded. ‘He went over
to the Japs. That’s why he was killed. I think maybe my grandfather had a hand in that. And Hans – the same red hair, but he’s Buka really.’ She paused there, frowning, and when I asked her if it was Hans who had visited them in Aldeburgh some months back, she nodded vaguely, muttering to herself, ‘Buka through and through.’ And then she seemed to jerk herself out of her reverie, lifting her head and looking straight at me again as she abruptly changed the subject. ‘So Jona’s in financial difficulties, is he?’
‘He needed this cargo. That’s all he told me.’ I got off the bunk and reached for my clothes. It was up to her to find out about that. ‘Talk to Shelvankar,’ I said. ‘He’s radio officer and cargo agent all in one, and I would imagine the best source of information on board. And if you know any of the crew … Do you understand the Buka language?’
She shook her head. ‘Not Buka. But Pidgin is the same all through the islands. I’m sure that will come back to me quite easily.’
‘Then have a look round the ship, talk to some of the crew while I get dressed.’
‘And what about Jona? You haven’t told me what impression you’ve formed of him.’
‘No, and I’m not going to.’ I had my back to her, rootling around for my shaving kit. ‘I’m a visitor on board this ship, and if he has problems, it’s none of my business.’ I was still tired, and her persistence irritated me. The old belief that a woman on board meant trouble may have had something to do with it.
Silence for a moment; then she said, ‘Very well, I’ll leave you to dress now.’ I heard the door close. She was gone, and I breathed a sigh of relief. I went to the heads then and had a shower. By the time I was shaved and dressed it was past 10.30. I lay on my bunk and tried to read, but my mind wouldn’t concentrate, wondering how well she knew her brother, how much he had told her in letters. It was five years since she had last seen him. A long gap, and some time in the next two hours she would confront him with the fact of her presence here on board this ship. And those two trucks. Like me, she must be wondering what the hell was in them, why the secrecy?
Solomons Seal Page 13