The Wreckers' Revenge

by Norman Jorgensen

  Magistrate Roe was severely wounded in the attack and is in considerable pain and distress having undergone surgery for more than eighty stitches, but is in a stable condition in hospital and is expected to recover, eventually.

  Eyewitness to the shooting, Mr Cecil Barker, 43, of Pier Street, said he was walking down Barrack Street towards the river when he saw a man in a dinner suit step out of the Weld Club and onto the pavement under one of the new electric lights. According to Barker, ‘a tall man dressed in dark clothing and carrying two large pistols appeared out of the shadows across the road and called, “Roe, you wretched worm.” Roe cried out in fright and turned to run back inside, but just as he turned, the man with the guns fired both at once.’

  Barker continued, ‘One bullet hit Magistrate Roe in the side of the left buttock and burst out the other buttock in a shower of blood. The second bullet cut across the top of his thighs. The gunman then calmly aimed and fired a third time, hitting Magistrate Roe in the foot.’

  Mr Baker reported that he heard the shooter quietly say, ‘Nobody,’ then the assailant slipped away into the night.

  I look up at Sam Chi to see his reaction. Sam hadn’t been in the prison in Sumatra with us when Captain Bowen had killed the Dutch commander by stabbing him in the throat. Back then, the Captain had threatened as he did it, ‘Nobody harms my crew. Nobody.’ And now the magistrate who had me whipped lies in the hospital with serious injuries to his bum. I don’t know what to think. Did the Captain go out again after dinner on Saturday night?

  As I am about to hand back the newspaper, I see another box in the bottom corner of the front page with a smaller headline. I clutch it back and stare in disbelief. I can almost feel my eyes bulge from my head.

  Christian Brother Dies in Terrible Accident

  Brother Christian Reynard, Boarding House Master at Christian Brothers College in St George’s Terrace, was found dead on Sunday morning in tragic circumstances. It appears he fell from the second-floor boarding house window. The unfortunate man landed upright on the spiked fence railings below the window, spearing himself in a most grisly manner. Ruling out suicide because of his vocation, and as the Police can find no evidence of foul play, they are treating Brother Christian’s death as an accident and will report to the coroner accordingly.

  ‘Brother Christian is dead?’ I ask Sam Chi, not really expecting an answer. I can hardly believe it. Did the Captain kill him? He wouldn’t have, would he? But then again, could it be a coincidence? Surely not. It can only have been him. Both the men who had organised to have me whipped dealt with so harshly? One shot and badly wounded and the other dead, impaled on sharp iron spikes?’

  The Captain’s words play on my mind. Nobody harms my crew. Nobody. And I am one of the crew, and I was harmed.

  ‘If it was the Captain, why didn’t he kill the magistrate?’ I ask.

  ‘This way, Roe will suffer and be reminded of what he did to you every time he sits down for years to come,’ says Bosun Stevenson. ‘And with his foot half shot off, everytime he stands or walks he’ll remember you as well. You wouldn’t want to be Magistrate Roe from now on, would you? In fact, I’ll be surprised if he doesn’t retire sometime soon. Just in case he issues another sentence the Captain doesn’t approve of.’

  I nod, trying to imagine the pain of having your bum shot to pieces. I wince at just the very thought of it.

  ‘The Captain really is a moral man,’ the Bosun continues. ‘It is just that sometimes his own laws, the ones he lives by, are much better than the Queen’s. He obeys the law of the land when it suits him, but too many laws are made by rich folk to make themselves richer. They use magistrates like Jeremy bleeding Roe to maintain and protect their ill-gotten wealth.’

  ‘And besides, the Captain may have left him alive so that you can finish him off yourself when you are older,’ interrupts Sam.

  ‘Really?’ I say, incredulously.

  ‘There is no way I’ll ever shoot the magistrate. I wouldn’t be able to,’ I say, my head filling with a vision of me doing such a terrible thing. As I say it, I get a painful twinge in my bum, and suddenly, I am not so sure after all.

  ‘Believe me, boy, I’ve seen you,’ says the Bosun. ‘You can do anything if the situation is bad enough. You are far stronger than you think. Far stronger. You jumped into that boiling sea to rescue poor Mr Cord, remember.’

  ‘I didn’t think at the time. It never occurred to me I might drown as well.’

  ‘What are you going to do with your share of the last voyage?’ he asks, seeing that I am embarrassed and so changes the subject. ‘It is a considerable fortune you made there, by any measure.’

  ‘Nothing really. I am not allowed to access it until I turn twenty-one. I get an allowance from the bank, to keep me in beer and skittles, but that’s all.’

  ‘You don’t drink,’ says Sam.

  ‘No, and I don’t play skittles either, so it is a bit of a waste really. But I do buy books and sweets and ginger beer, and I bought a new cricket bat, but it got left behind at school.’

  ‘Not much room to play cricket on board,’ adds Bosun Stevenson, ‘or much time, come to that. Good at cricket were you?’

  ‘With the right ball,’ I reply. ‘I hit loads of sixes over the pavilion at our school grounds. We beat Hale School five times.’

  ‘All the ship work I set you made you good and fit, eh?’ he laughs.

  As he says it, Captain Bowen arrives in the dining room, dressed and ready for the day. He sees Sam, Bosun Stevenson and me and comes to the table, pulls out a chair and sits. ‘Beautiful day for it, how say you, men?’ He glances at the newspaper but doesn’t seem to even notice the two headlines. ‘What are you three up to? Planning mutiny, I’ll wager from the look of you. This looks like a conspiracy if ever I’ve seen one. I’ve never seen such a suspicious bunch of reprobates.’

  The Bosun and Sam both laugh.

  ‘Going to cast me adrift in an open boat like Captain Bligh and the Bounty and change the name of the ship to the Red Dragon, and then off to pillage and plunder the Spanish Main, no doubt.’

  ‘Now that sounds like a very good plan, Captain,’ laughs the Bosun. ‘What say you, Red? You’ll like that, the Red Dragon.’

  ‘I would!’ I chuckle.

  ‘Mutiny it is then, eh?’

  The Captain smiles. ‘You’ll have to wait until we see if William Dampier’s treasure awaits, I’m afraid. Finished reading his journals yet, Red?’

  ‘Not yet Captain. I’m up to his second voyage to the Indian Ocean. The third is still to come, so no clues yet.’

  ‘Let me know the second you do find something, Red, even just a suspicion.’

  ‘The very second,’ I reply quickly, though I am not hopeful. William Dampier’s journal is just plain boring most of the time. It is by far the dullest book I have ever read. And he writes endlessly about the weather, but mostly about being more concerned with his ship sinking because of woodworm eating holes in it than fighting or burying stolen treasure. They seem to spend an awful lot of time careened on beaches replacing the timber planks. And besides, it was all such a long time ago.

  ‘Breakfast up to standard?’ the Captain asks cheerfully, looking around for the waitress.

  She sees him and immediately rushes across the room, seeming a bit flustered, like I’ve noticed a lot of women do when he is about.

  ‘My, Merle, you look lovely this morning,’ he says with a beaming smile.

  She blushes to her bootstraps and fumbles in her apron pocket for her order pad and pencil.

  ‘Breakfast fit for a king,’ he announces, ‘or at least one fit for a humble sea captain about to go adventuring, eh Red?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ I reply, as Merle rushes away to the kitchen. If it is anything like last year, then adventuring it will be, in spades.

  The Captain has just finished his breakfast when I see movement over his shoulder. Sam does as well and takes a sharp breath. A police inspector stands in the dining roo
m doorway. He takes off his cap and walks towards our table while two constables stay at the door to stand guard. I glance out the window to my left and see several more policemen in the hotel’s stable yard. I notice they all wear pistol holsters, though the flaps are clipped shut.

  Have the police in Geraldton been told about my escape? Are they here to arrest me?

  The Captain won’t let that happen, but if he attacks the police inspector, someone is bound to get shot. As I look about, panic rises in me. It will not be a fair fight. The others haven’t seen the police outside, and none of us has our guns with us. My brand new one is in my seachest. It is typical. I have only been back with the crew a few days, and already danger lurks nearby.

  Captain Bowen doesn’t turn around, but he has seen Sam’s reaction and knows something is wrong. He reaches under the table and slowly slips his dagger from his boot and places it on the table next to the bread knife. I immediately do the same.

  The two policemen at the door do not look particularly nervous, even though they must know Black Bowen’s reputation for ruthlessness. I definitely would be as nervous as a kitten going up against him in a fight. The Captain slowly stands and turns to see what is happening. I move my hand closer to my dagger. It suddenly occurs that I might be soon going up against them in a fight as well.

  ‘The notorious Black Bowen, as I live and breathe, and here in my quiet town,’ the police inspector announces loudly as if calmly calling out bingo numbers. ‘I received your message. And so here I am. To what do we owe the pleasure,’ he pauses, ‘… James?’

  I blink in surprise.

  ‘Hello, George,’ replies the Captain, as his face breaks into a wide smile. ‘You gave me a start for a moment there when I first saw the uniform.’

  ‘Guilty conscience, obviously. Nothing to do with the shooting of that drongo of a magistrate, Jerry Roe, on Saturday I hope? Wouldn’t blame you if you did, mind you. Someone should have put a bullet in that mad dog years ago. Sorely tempted myself on more than one occasion.’ He taps the pistol on his belt for emphasis and continues to smile. ‘It has your work stamped all over it.’

  ‘Join us, George,’ says the Captain, indicating the fourth chair at the table, and sits back down.

  ‘Men, I’d like you to meet Inspector George O’Hara, who is a decent enough sort of cove, for a rozza. He’s a decent bloke, deep down.’

  I find it bizarre that a well-known smuggler like Captain Bowen could have a senior policeman as a friend, and a good friend evidently from the warmth with which they greeted each other.

  ‘Crime business good?’ asks the Captain.

  ‘Crime business good?’ replies the inspector.

  Both men laugh.

  ‘It’s been quiet here,’ continues Inspector O’Hara, ‘just the usual Saturday night drunks and brawls. But they had a tough weekend, my colleagues down in Perth,’ he says. ‘Not only the shooting, but a young woman tried to drown herself in the river, a hotel burnt down, arson, and set a whole street alight. And then, to top it all, a priest fell or jumped from a window and skewered himself on railings like a spit-roasted lamb. Not a pretty sight I’m told. Nasty business. Unlucky bugger. Anywhere else and he would have just broken a leg.’

  ‘Revenge is mine, sayeth the Lord,’ says the Captain.

  ‘Oh, I thought revenge was more your line, James,’ the inspector replies.

  ‘Inspector, you slander me, a humble freight carrier going about his lawful business,’ protests the Captain.

  ‘And I’m the King of the Congo,’ laughs the inspector. ‘But tell me, really, to what do we owe the pleasure of your company? I see in the harbour your Dragon sits high in the water, not weighted down with cargo this time, illegal or otherwise.’

  ‘Nothing more than spending a night here in this brand-new Freemasons Hotel under the agreeable care of the esteemed Publican Mr Burt, on our way home to Broome. And the obvious charms of young Merle over there.’

  ‘My daughter, you mean.’

  The Captain takes a sharp breath before he realises the inspector is joking. ‘Tell me, Inspector, you used to be based at the Perth Lock-up in Barrack Street?’

  ‘Until I was posted up here last year, much to Mrs O’Hara’s displeasure, I might add. Why?’

  ‘Red here tells me there is a storeroom at the end of a corridor where there are pictures on the wall?’ asks the Captain.

  ‘Indeed there is. They were drawn by a fellow called Rembrandt.’

  ‘Rembrandt?’ he asks, incredulously.

  ‘He was an old Dutch sailor. We just called him that because he drew pictures so well. Just like the old Dutch master. He was stranded in Perth years ago. No way of getting home. The poor man was homeless, so there was no way he could ever afford the fare. A derelict, too keen on the grog, but he had been a good painter. He was a kind old bloke, good for a story, but down on his luck, so we let him sleep in the storeroom.’

  ‘Red said they were excellent drawings,’ continues the Captain.

  ‘They were. They are. Especially the one of William Dampier, and another of his ship. The Roebuck, I believe it was called?’

  ‘I believe it was. What happened to the poor old blighter? Rembrandt, I mean, not Dampier,’ asks the Captain.

  ‘That mate of yours we were just talking about, from up Derby, Magistrate Jeremy Bleeding Roe, that’s what happened to him. When he transferred from Derby and was appointed to Perth, the first thing Roe did was throw poor Rembrandt out into the street. Went on and on about it being a police station and not a common doss house. Sadly, we found poor Rembrandt under the Causeway Bridge a week later, or what was left of him. Wild dogs. Exposure, according to the police surgeon.’

  I draw a deep breath at the thought of that. Being eaten by wild dogs must be horrible, even if you are dead. The poor, poor man.

  ‘Why are you interested in the storeroom, James? What could possibly concern you there?’ the inspector asks. He pauses, takes a breath and a smile slowly forms on his face. ‘Ah, the picture of William Dampier. Ah, I get it. Going treasure hunting are you, Captain? I read somewhere that Dampier returned home to England penniless, and died very soon after, even though he was worth millions. So where is it all? What happened to it, eh? Where did he hide his treasure?’

  ‘As Mr Shakespeare reminds us, George, that is, indeed, the question,’ answers the Captain.

  DAMPIER’S JOURNAL

  ‘Captain. I think I might have found something,’ I cry as I realise what is in front of me. I am on deck, leaning against the binnacle in the shade of the mainsail reading Dampier’s journal. The breeze had dropped to under five knots, so we were almost becalmed, with not a lot to do, but now I can feel it increasing and getting warmer. The Captain is only a few steps away leaning against the rail and watching the horizon. I begin summarising passages to him.

  ‘Listen to this: on 12 March 1688, Dampier was the sailing master of the Cygnet, not the captain, and sailed from New Holland, that would be Australia, planning to touch at the island Cocos, but very bad weather with much thunder and lightning, rain and high blustering winds prevented them from landing.’

  The Captain nods thoughtfully.

  ‘A bit later Dampier writes he thought now was his time to make his escape from Captain Read, who he seems to hate, so he gets set ashore in a canoe off a remote island close to Sumatra, along with his chest and clothes. The island is called Nicobar.’

  I continue, ‘William Dampier was known to own a locked iron chest he carried with him all the time. Reports suggest it could have been his treasure chest from when he plundered South America as a privateer years before. But see here, in the second last paragraph, the only chest he has with him when he leaves Captain Read’s ship, and is swamped by the waves off Nicobar Island, is one full of books and papers. A chest full of treasure would have sunk when the canoe overturned. He must have buried it before then. He mentions the Cocos Islands in his journal not long before. If he already planned to leave Captain Read�
��s ship, he must have hidden the chest before then, hoping to go back for the treasure later. Dampier made another trip out these ways in 1710. Was he still searching for it even then?’ I hand the Captain the book with the page open.

  ‘The only trouble is, Dampier says they couldn’t land on Cocos,’ I continue. ‘He says at the beginning of the chapter that the winds were blowing north-west, west-north-west, and north-north-west for several days.’

  ‘That’s odd,’ says the Captain. ‘From what I remember from the chart, the Cocos Islands have a lagoon in the centre, a huge one. And a lot of islands. He could have anchored and sheltered in the lagoon if the winds were too strong, or on the southern side of Home Island if they were blowing the way he says. That would not have been a problem for him. The man was one of the world’s greatest seamen.’

  He drums his fingers on the rail, considering something. ‘You know, Red, I think this entry might be a bluff. If you buried treasure on an island, you would not want anyone to guess where it might be. I think I, too, would lie about where I had landed.’

  ‘Why mention Cocos at all then?’ I ask. ‘Wouldn’t you keep the place secret?’

  ‘I suspect because Dampier was the sailing master and not the captain. If the captain’s log mentioned the island, but Dampier’s account did not, that might have aroused suspicions. He would have wanted to put everyone off the scent. The captain would have recorded calling at the island as they would have collected food and water and carried out repairs, maybe. The ship’s owners, or someone else, might have read it later, but by then Dampier would have hoped to have been back to dig up his gold.’

  The Captain looks me in the eye and asks, ‘What do you think, Red? Shall we alter course to the Cocos Islands? What have we got to lose? The sou’-westerly is just about here. We’ll make good time for the rest of the day.’

  ‘Hadn’t you better check with others, Captain?’ I ask. ‘After all, it will be weeks out of our way of going home to Broome. Some of them might mind.’