by Nevil Shute
Jack Donelly got down on his hands and knees to watch it running. “Smallest in the world,” he breathed, entranced. He raised his head. “Those folks who came on board, the guy from the Banque and the guy from the Governor’s office and all — they’d have been mighty interested to see this. Maybe we oughta showed it to them. . . .”
They lay moored stern on to the quay for most of the afternoon while Papeete slept; the sunlight on deck was torrid and they sweated it out upon their berths. At half-past three there was a step on deck, and Keith got up. It was the sous-officier, very smart; he held two folded papers in his hand, and gave one to each of them. “Citation,” he said. “What you say — summons. To the law court, the Judge. On Monday, at eleven hours in the morning. I will come to fetch you.”
Keith opened the paper, but it was all in French. “Can I see the British consul?” he asked.
“There is no British consul in Tahiti,” said the man. “He comes sometimes from Fiji.”
“Ask about the American consul,” growled Jack.
“There is no American consul,” said the sous-officier. He eyed Jack, puzzled. “You are American?”
“I’m a U.S. citizen,” said the captain truculently. “You better watch your step.”
Keith said, “If you’re going to take us to court we’ll have to have an interpreter. We neither of us speak French.”
The man nodded, not unfriendly. “There is here an Englishman, Mr. Devenish, who was consul many years. I will ask him to come and talk to you.”
“Will there be an interpreter in court?”
“The Judge speaks good English. Perhaps Mr. Devenish also, he will come.”
“Will we get fined?”
The sous-officier shrugged his shoulders. “Perhaps.”
“What happens if we haven’t enough money for the fine?”
The man smiled. “You will have to get some. Sell the ship, perhaps. Otherwise, there is the prison.”
He left them with that to think about and walked up into the town. They sat in the cockpit, dejected, waiting for something to happen. “I don’t like all this talk about going to prison,” Keith muttered. He had an idea that a permit from the Governor would be needed before he could visit Marokota Island, and prison didn’t seem the best place from which to forward an application.
“I’d rather go to prison than have these Frenchies steal the Mary Belle,” said Jack. “I haven’t got no thirty per cent. What they making such a fuss about, anyway? We done nothing wrong.”
“I haven’t any money to pay fines,” said Keith. “But they can’t put us in prison. There must be some way out . . .”
“Aw, that’s nothing,” said Jack, comforting him. “I been in prison. There ain’t nothing to it.”
Keith raised his head in curiosity. “What did you go to prison for?”
“Rape,” said his captain. He struggled to explain himself. “Gloria didn’t make no trouble about it. She’d ha’ come with me again. But when her Ma turned nasty and she got a lawyer, ‘n he said it was rape, ‘n they made Gloria say all kinds of things in court. The Judge asked me why I did it ‘n I didn’t know what to say except that I just naturally wanted to. So he said it was rape, too, ‘n give me three months.” He stared out over the rippling, sunlit waters of the harbour. “It was worth it,” he said simply.
Keith didn’t know what to say to that. He grinned, and asked, “What was it like in prison?”
“Okay,” said his Captain. “Good chow, ‘n not much work. They got the radio in every cell so you can lie and listen to it all the time. Television twice a week, ‘n a movie every so often. It’s okay.” He paused in reminiscent thought. “Gloria would have liked it fine,” he said.
Towards evening the harbour launch came back and towed them out from the quay to the quarantine anchorage.
They were sitting disconsolate on deck next morning awaiting the arrival of the port health officer, hoping to negotiate with him for supplies of water and fresh vegetables, when the Flying Cloud sailed in. She came from the north, and she came very quickly, for it was one of Captain Petersen’s principles in making a passage that he carried sail all the time but whenever the speed dropped below about ten knots he put on his big Diesel to help her along. In consequence he made good more than twice the speed of the Mary Belle; he had sailed from Honolulu thirteen days behind them, but arrived in Papeete only a day later.
He sailed into the harbour for he liked to display his fine ship and the seamanship of his crew, the big Diesel ticking over with the exhaust muttering beneath the counter ready to pull him out of trouble if the unexpected happened in the narrow waters of the harbour. But nothing did so. He rounded up neatly into wind heading for a vacant mooring buoy, a dinghy splashed into the water by her side, the square yards on the foremast came down together, the mizzen swung free above the wheelhouse and deck cabin, and in a couple of minutes a coir hawser had been passed through the eye of the buoy and returned on board.
Jack watched all this, entranced. “Gee, that’s pretty to watch,” he said. “That Captain Petersen, he handles her fine. Great big ship she is, too.”
“You’re sure that’s the same one?” asked Keith. “The one we went on board to ask the course? The Flying Cloud?”
His captain turned to him with scorn. “Sure it’s the same one. Think I wouldn’t know her? See, she’s got one topping lift rigged to the end of the mizzen boom. I never see that before. More often they have twins, rigged about two-thirds the way along. ‘Course she’s the Flying Cloud.” He turned to Keith, a brilliant thought fresh in his mind. “Maybe he’ll come off and talk to us. He was real nice that day. Suppose he does, let’s you and me show him the generating set. Smallest in the world. I bet he’s never seen anything like that.”
He did not come that morning. They thought they saw him on deck inspecting the Mary Belle through field glasses, but the ships were nearly a mile apart and it was difficult to say. They thought they saw the woman on deck, too, though they could not be very certain about that either. Sails were furled quickly and neatly, a derrick was rigged and lowered a big motor pinnace into the water, and the captain went ashore to the Customhouse quay.
There was nothing to be looked at any more. “Let’s have some chow, ‘n then lie down,” Captain Donelly said. “I wish that redhead would get in one of them boats ‘n come on over.”
The remains of the cornmeal in the sack were now a festering mass of maggots which neither of them had eaten for the last fortnight. Keith persuaded Jack to let him drop it overboard, which Jack did with regret. “Cornmeal fritters are good chow,” he observed. “Maybe we can get another sack here some place.” He scooped up a double handful of the maggots for use as bait and put them in a tin, and consigned the sack to the deep. They had a meal, and lay down to sleep away the heat of the afternoon.
It was about three o’clock when the launch from the Flying Cloud came alongside. Captain Petersen hailed them. “Mary Belle! Anyone aboard?”
Jack stuck his head up out of the hatch. “Sure,” he said. “They won’t let us go any other place.”
“Mind if I come aboard?”
“Okay.”
The launch drew alongside. Keith joined Jack on deck. “We’re supposed to be in quarantine,” he said. “Is that all right?”
“That’s okay,” said Captain Petersen. “I’ve just come from the Harbor office.” He swung himself over the bulwarks onto the deck of the Mary Belle, and turned back to the coxswain of his launch. “Lay off a cable or so, or else make fast astern,” he said. “I’ll give a hail when I’m ready to go back.”
The launch sheered off, and he turned to the mariners, smiling. “Well,” he said. “You boys have certainly got yourselves a mess of trouble here.”
“Aw,” said Jack, “that doesn’t amount to anything. It’s only paper stuff. We haven’t done nothing wrong.”
There was a momentary pause. “Well,” said Captain Petersen thoughtfully, “that’s certainly one way
of looking at it. It may be the right way.” He sat down on the bulwark. “Anyway,” he said, “you aren’t in quarantine any more. You can move into the quay now any time you like. I’ll get my launch to give you a pluck in later.”
They stared at him, dazed. “How come?” asked Jack Donelly.
“I got a bill of health for you in Honolulu and brought it along, and put it in with mine,” said Captain Petersen. “It’s only a sort of letter saying that there wasn’t any cholera in Honolulu on the day you sailed. I told the port health officer here that you’d left it in the office by mistake, and they asked me to bring it along.” In fact he had had to exercise a good deal of personal charm to soothe the ruffled feelings of the port authorities in Honolulu, but he had got what he wanted in the end. He had been equally successful that morning in Papeete.
In fact he was a frequent visitor to Papeete in the Flying Cloud and had built up an enduring friendship with the chef du port over the years. The Flying Cloud was a large and an important yacht whose owners expected the captain to avoid irritating delays caused by minor French bureaucracy. There was only one berth in the port that had water and Diesel oil piped alongside and from which a telephone connection could be made, at the Grand Quai, used by mail steamers at infrequent intervals. On his first visit to Papeete he had taken the chef du port out to lunch, and the chef had mentioned the great interest that he took in the affairs of the St. Xavier Hospice des Orphelins. Orphan asylums, said the chef with tears in his eyes, were usually short of money and this one was shorter than most, but they all did what they could to help the little homeless children of Papeete. Captain Petersen reckoned that he knew the form and he was duly touched, so deeply that he had pulled out his wallet there and then and had given the chef two notes of ten mille francs for him to take up to the Mother Superior as a contribution, and that afternoon he had moved the Flying Cloud into the berth at the Grand Quai. He had been stunned that evening to receive a note delivered by hand containing a note of thanks from the Mother Superior and a receipt for the full amount. Out of curiosity he had walked up the mountain next morning and had found that the St. Xavier Hospice des Orphelins was a real place, complete with nuns and children. Since then he had repeated this donation on every visit that he had made to Papeete, with the result that he had always got the best berth in the harbour and had had no trouble at all.
He squatted on the bulwark of the Mary Belle in the warm sunlight, a resplendent figure in a clean white uniform. He dealt first with Jack Donelly. “They tell me that you’re having trouble over no certificate or registration, and no clearance from Honolulu, Captain,” he remarked. “Cigarette?” He proffered an opened pack.
Jack Donelly took one and the captain lit it for him. “I didn’t know you had to have them things,” said Jack. “Nobody ever told me. Papers, aren’t they?”
“That’s right,” said Captain Petersen. He turned to the man beside him. “Tell me — are you Polynesian?”
“I’m a U.S. citizen,” said Jack. “I got born in Reedsport, Oregon, ‘n lived there all my life. Eleven of us there was — eleven that grew up, that is. Seven boys ‘n five girls. Dad met Ma around these parts some place ‘n settled down at Reedsport. They got married there, I guess.”
“Your mother came from round about these parts? From these islands?”
“Ma came from a place called Huahine,” Jack said. “She was always telling me to get down to The Islands and I’d be okay. I guess she didn’t know.”
“Let me get this straight,” said Captain Petersen. “Your mother was born at Huahine. She must have been Polynesian?”
“I’d say she was. She was always kinda dark, darker than the other women in our street. Not nigger dark, of course. Just kinda brown.”
“Is she still alive?” asked the captain gently.
Jack shook his head. “Ma died last year. She was always wanting to get back to The Islands, but she liked the television too, so she was pulled both ways.”
“Did you tell them you were half Polynesian when you got here yesterday? That your mother came from Huahine?”
Jack shook his great head. “I didn’t think of it. Nobody ever asked.”
“Have you got anything to show your mother was a Polynesian? Any birth certificate, or anything like that?”
“That’s papers?” Captain Petersen nodded, and Jack shook his head. “I got my Navy discharge paper some place,” he said vaguely. “Maybe I left it back home. But there wasn’t anything about Ma on that.” He hesitated. “I dunno that Dad and Ma were ever married, not in church, I mean. But they stuck together over forty years. That counts for something, don’t it?”
“Sure,” said Captain Petersen. He turned to the man beside him. “Look, Captain,” he said. “They can’t do a thing to you down here. You’re half a Polynesian. The French run this colony for the Polynesians, not for the whites. They’ll have to give you back your money. You won’t come into court on Monday — they’ll withdraw all the charges against you. They won’t try and take your ship away from you. They won’t expect you to have any papers for the ship. They’ll forget about the passport. You rate down here as Polynesian, and this is your country.”
“I’m a U.S. citizen,” said Jack. “They won’t take that away?”
The captain hesitated. “No. But don’t talk about it, just at first. Let things get settled down.” He paused. “I’ll see the chef du port soon as we go on shore,” he said. “He’ll fix everything for you.”
Jack was very pleased. He nudged Keith beside him, and said in a hoarse whisper, “Show him the little generator. Smallest in the world.”
Keith nodded. “You tell him,” he said.
Jack Donelly turned to the officer beside him. “Say, Captain,” he said. “Mr. Keats got something down below we’d like you to see. Smallest motor in the world, it is.”
“I’d certainly like to see it,” said Captain Petersen politely. They got up from the rail and Jack led the way down below. The captain touched Keith on the arm before going down the ladder. “Would you be Mr. Keith Stewart?” he asked.
Keith smiled. “That’s right,” he said. “He always calls me Keats. He got it wrong first day.”
“Nice guy?”
“One of the best.”
“I’d say so, too.” He paused. “I’d appreciate a bit of a talk with you later on, Mr. Stewart.”
Keith glanced at him in surprise. “Of course.”
They went down into the cabin after Jack Donelly. Captain Petersen took a quick glance around the stark bareness of the ship’s interior. There was not even any varnish — just the bare wood, getting a bit dirty. There was a minimum of bulkheads and cupboards; the ship was little but an empty shell, devoid of any comforts. Yet she was efficient; the two forty-gallon barrels of water were properly chocked and stayed in place, and the very emptiness of her, the absence of tables, doors, and bulkheads, made it possible to get about inside her in a hurry. He knew fishing vessels, and he liked this one.
Jack lifted the little generator set reverently down from the fiddled shelf. “Take a look at this, Captain,” he said. “Smallest generator set in the world. Mr. Keats here, he designed it all, ‘n made every bit of it.”
The captain of the Flying Cloud took it in his hands and examined it with interest and growing respect. He lived at Midlake, close outside Seattle. Here his small son had several model aeroplanes fitted with mass production compression ignition motors, and he had spent many hours contracting a sore finger twiddling the props to try and make them go. He was very familiar with small motors of that sort. This, which he now held cradled in his hand, was something totally different. It was a four-cycle motor, for a start, with tiny valves and valve springs and push rods, beautifully miniaturized, superbly made. The generator was, to him, a little wonder, with its delicately worked commutator and tiny brush gear.
“Does it go?” he asked in wonder.
“Sure it goes,” said Jack. “Let’s show him how it goes.”
>
Keith filled the little tank with a drain of petrol, inverted the model to prime the carburettor, and flicked it into life with his thumb. The pea bulb lit, the note steadied as the governor came into action, and the model ran on steadily.
“Gee,” said Captain Petersen quietly. “I never saw anything like it.”
He sat watching the model, deep in thought. He was one of the few people on the West Coast of America who knew anything about Sol Hirzhorn’s secret hobby. His wife’s youngest sister was engaged to a boy called Pete Horner who worked in a minor capacity upon the maintenance of the Hirzhorn executive aircraft at the Seattle-Tacoma airport. Pete had actually worked upon the installation of the machine tools in the basement workshop of Sol Hirzhorn’s home at Wauna, and he had made several visits to the house since then to service minor defects or to take in stocks of materials. He had been warned not to talk about these matters because Mr. Hirzhorn valued his privacy, but inevitably he had told his girl about these visits to the Hirzhorn home, and so they had become known in the family. Captain Petersen had heard that Sol Hirzhorn in his later years had taken to making small engines and clocks in the privacy of a fabulous workshop in his home. He had paid little attention to the rumour, but now it came back to his mind most forcibly.
He watched the little motor till it ran out of fuel and came to a standstill. “Say,” he remarked, “isn’t that just dandy? I never saw anything like it. Is that right, that you designed it all yourself, and made it?”
Keith nodded. “It’s what I do,” he said, a little apologetically. “I make things like this, and write about them in a magazine.”
“In a magazine?”
He nodded. “The Miniature Mechanic. It’s an English magazine.” He reached over to the foot of the bunk and opened his suitcase, rummaged in it, and produced a couple of copies of the little magazine. “This is it,” he said. He gave one copy to the captain, who examined it with interest, and leafed the other through himself. “This is the serial I’ve just finished now,” he observed. “How to make a Congreve clock.”