Shark Island

by Joan Druett

  The next section of the box was devoted to accounts with impressive totals at the bottom of the columns. Rochester observed pensively, “Captain Reed’s vast wealth might provide a motive for his murder. Whoever marries his widow will be doing nicely.”

  “Ko nga take whawhai, he whenua, he wahine,” Wiki agreed.

  “If you want to look for trouble, look for wealth and women, ha?” said George, who even if he did not speak te reo Maori could recognize quite a number of Wiki’s favorite proverbs. He sighed deeply, returning the accounts to the box. It was getting late, and the next section yielded nothing more interesting than provisioning receipts. Then, just as they were thinking of putting off the rest of the job until the morning, Rochester spied three folded, sealed, addressed letters that had been thrust into an inconspicuous slot at the side of the box, evidently until Reed had a chance to put them on board a States-bound ship.

  “Halloa,” he said. “This could be what she was looking for.” As Wiki watched, he took out a knife and without the slightest compunction heated it in the lamp, worked the seals loose, and opened the pages out. Two were to captains replying to their queries about freights. George folded them up again and replaced the seals, which were still warm and sticky.

  The third, which was much longer and much more informal, was addressed to Stonington, and had been written six days before. He beckoned to Wiki. “My God,” he said. “Look at this!” Then he read it more slowly, while Wiki looked over his shoulder.

  * * *

  “My dear brother,” it began:

  Through the blessings of Providence I have arrived off the northeast coast of Brazil at an island group in the region of Pernambuco after a passage of ten days from Rio, where our freight of iron found a good market and no duty to pay as they do not weigh iron for the duty. Otherwise Rio is a disagreeable place to say the least and a nest of rogues and charlatans. I was in hopes of getting rid of my Mate Hammond there, he is a disagreeable thing, even if he is a Stonington man I long to get clear of him, he has no more manners than a——and I dislike the way he speaks to Mrs. Reed my wife but there were no prospects in Rio for finding another officer and so he will stay though he does not appear to care whether he gets any skins or not, he would make a better horse jockey than a first officer of a ship or a master of a sealing gang. I had two men run away in Rio, one being the cook, the other that New Jerseyman greenhand that was not good for nothing, and I had trouble enough replacing them and the new cook has addled egg instead of brains. Worst of all though I had every reason to have expected intelligence from the “Hero” which is carrying 100,000$ for the Canton venture, all in silver specie, but alas! all I found was the hardest of news, that she had been wrecked on an island off the northeast coast in the region of Pernambuco during attack by the privateers which abound on the coast. The crew all escaped in the boat and put into Pernambuco and so to Rio, and I am left to my solitary apprehensions as to whether to give up the sealing and invest in a cargo of cotton or to forge on with the venture, trusting to Providence that we shall fill the holds with skins at the Galapagos or the Leeward Islands, and then proceed to Canton and make some kind of profit, but in meantime I have taken on board 20 tons of ballast copper dross for which I paid 30$ and then steered north to see if I can find the wreck of the “Hero” and will apprise you as soon as I find anything about the fate of her specie, this is just for your information in the meantime. With best respects from your brother Ezekiel Reed.

  “My God,” said Wiki. He was stunned.

  George observed, “The Hero was a rich prize, indeed.”

  “Aye,” said Wiki slowly. While it was typically cunning for a shrewd ship merchant to put such a valuable cargo on the most insignificant vessel possible for the hazardous voyage around Cape Horn, in this case the ploy hadn’t worked. So who else had known about the rich lading of the Hero? He and George stared at each other.

  Twelve

  “So this is the famous sloop Hero,” said George Rochester.

  It was early the next morning, and he and Wiki Coffin were standing on the ripple-marked sand staring at the wreck. Though the paintwork on the stern was faded, the name Hero was plain. Close up, it was even more obvious that she had been sailed straight at the beach. Her bowsprit was jammed deep into a thicket of scrubby low growth, and the sand between her stern and the high tide mark was gouged deep.

  She was in surprisingly good shape, though. The boat and sails were gone, but the single mast and standing rigging were entire. The Hero had carried a forestaysail and two jibs, and there was a boom for a huge gaff sail and a couple of spars for a small square topsail—a lot of canvas for her size. The upper part of the hull was reinforced with belts of thick planking, but several of the strakes had fallen in on the larboard side, so that the wreck had slumped that way. However, the planking on the starboard side was sound.

  A board led up to the gangway rail, evidence of other visitors. When Wiki tested it with a boot it took his weight, so he strode up. Then, as he stood looking about the splintered, sloping deck, he heard George join him. His friend was a magnificent sight, dressed to the nines in a lieutenant’s blue claw hammer coat, its broad lapels embellished with gold buttons and lace, a gold epaulette on the right shoulder. His long neck was encompassed by a stand-up collar lavishly embroidered with gold oak leaves and acorns and fouled anchors, and three more buttons decorated the cuff of each sleeve, which was laced with still more gold. He must be uncomfortably hot, Wiki thought, and wondered if George realized how bizarre he looked in this setting of wreck, sand, and scrub.

  George said with disbelief, “Nathaniel Palmer sailed seven hundred miles south of Cape Horn in this? She’s not much bigger than the cutter!”

  Wiki lifted an eyebrow, thinking that that was exactly what the U.S. Navy and Captain Wilkes expected of the small brig Swallow, but refrained from comment, instead leading the way to the amidships hatch. They clambered down to the hold. It was obvious at once that whatever had been there had been taken away. Rays of sun seeped in where planks gaped open on the side where the sloop had slumped, and lit up empty spaces and drifting sand. The lost air of an abandoned hulk surrounded them, along with the ammoniac smell of sea wrack.

  “Cleaned out as though she’s been broomed,” Rochester concluded with a sigh. They returned to the deck and then went aft, where a set of steps led down to the cramped after cabin. Boards creaked ominously as they moved, and sand slid audibly in the hold below. The cabin had been ransacked, too. The table had been scarred with knife marks, and all the lockers broken open. The mattresses in the two narrow berths leaked mildewed straw.

  Going back up the stairs, they walked along the sunbaked deck to the galley hatch. Wiki, going first, had to feel his way down the half-dozen rungs into the dark forecastle. It was bigger than the after cabin, designed to accommodate six. Berths were set into the bulkheads that led fore and aft, looking like half-open drawers, all of them a clutter of straw from broken mattresses. The galley stove was built against the aftermost wall—a sensible place, since it would provide heating in the icy realms where this little craft sailed. There was a smell of animal droppings, and when Wiki’s sight adjusted he could see tracks on the floor. There was nothing for them here, either.

  Back on deck, the sun beat down on them. Wiki turned and surveyed the bay. The Annawan floated heavily a hundred yards away, her bow toward them as if she were thinking about climbing up the beach, too—if she didn’t founder first. A half-mile farther out, the brig Swallow lay poised on her rippling reflection, the Stars and Stripes waving lazily from her peak. The boat that had brought Wiki and George to shore was hauled up high on the sand. There were marks where another boat had landed sometime since the last high tide, and then been pushed back into the water.

  Wiki turned and shook back his long hair to look up at the fortified prison ruins on the cliff high above. A narrow trail zigzagged up through the brush toward it. In contrast to all the other times he’d checked out the for
bidding silhouette, there was movement in the lofty ramparts—the four seamen who had rowed them here were digging a grave in the burying ground sited alongside the prison. Hammering sounds echoed over the water from the Annawan, where the boatswain’s mate was nailing down the lid of the coffin.

  From behind him, Rochester’s pensive voice remarked, “So there was just eight in the crew—two officers in the after cabin, and six sailors in the fo’c’sle. And a hundred thousand dollar coins in the hold! A devil of a haul—particularly when there were just eight men to overcome.”

  Nine or ten would have been plenty to overwhelm eight, even if they didn’t have surprise on their side, Wiki thought uneasily. He looked around again, and said, “Ezekiel Reed must be one of the most unlucky skippers in history.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Sealing, like whaling, depends on luck—and Ezekiel Reed not only lost his sloop, but his life in the bargain. The crew must think themselves incredibly unfortunate—not only is their captain killed, but their ship is foundering fast.”

  “True,” said Rochester with a heavy sigh. “We’ll end up taking the whole damn complement to Rio—seventeen souls!—and God alone knows where I’m going to accommodate ’em all.”

  Involuntarily, remembering what it had been like when the schooner’s men had invaded the Swallow, Wiki ejaculated, “No!” Then, calming as he saw George’s startled expression, he said, “E hoa, some of the planking of this wreck is good. If we can get at the damage in the hull of the Annawan we could use the planks to repair her.”

  “The Annawan’s old—I don’t know if it would be possible, old chap.”

  “But they built her strong,” Wiki argued. “They had to, if they expected her to get all the way to Antarctica on that strange so-called exploring expedition.”

  “Even if we hauled her out on the beach, I just don’t think her timbers could stand it. Her damaged side would slump, just like this wreck here. It would be an awful lot of work, just to finish her off.”

  George was right, Wiki thought, and was washed with a wave of depression. The two Annawan whaleboats were pulling for the beach, followed by another boat from the Swallow. Captain Reed’s coffin was balanced on the middle thwarts of one of the whaleboats, and Annabelle was in the stern sheets of the other. Men jumped out as the boats grated on shingle, and hauled them up the strand. Then six sailors hefted the coffin onto their shoulders and set off up the winding track, while the rest straggled after them, Annabelle Reed in the center.

  Without a word, Wiki and George loped down the gangway board to tail onto the procession. Then they slowed to match the funereal pace of the rest. Dust puffed up with every step. Insects hummed and twigs crackled against their legs, while the walls of the fortified prison frowned down upon them. A hot little wind blew leaves about, creating a constant whisper. The slope was steep, the winding path very narrow, and everything shimmered in the rising heat. Wiki could see ruts where heavy objects—blocks of building stone, perhaps—had been laboriously dragged up this track. As the going became harder men lagged behind, so that the procession lengthened with each zigzag.

  It was a curiously medieval scene, the oblong shape of the coffin stark against the hot, dry background, bobbing with the movements of the six sailor-bearers, the cavalcade strung out behind. Black-cloaked Annabelle Reed was supported by Alphabet Green’s arm, but they spoke very seldom. Hammond walked several paces behind them, his head down, a moody, preoccupied figure; unlike Alphabet Green, he was wearing a broadcloth suit. Annabelle’s cousin was wearing seaman’s dungarees, which though clean were well worn, and Wiki thought again about how badly life seemed to have treated him. Then came a straggle of sailors from both ships. Midshipman Keith was not there, being in charge of the brig. Also absent were Lieutenant Forsythe and Passed Midshipman Kingman, and Wiki wondered where they were. At the camp the cutter’s men had set up, he supposed—the sounds of the wake had drifted across the water for a long time the night before.

  Then they were at the top of the cliff. The shadow of the arched gate fell over Wiki as he turned through it; a crumbling stone wall led off to either side. The arch was adobe, with a few terra-cotta tiles on top. The slabs of rock that paved the path had cracked, lifted, and become treacherous, but at least the walk was level. Gravestones leaned here and there, some as tall as a man, while other slabs were set into the ground, a couple of them big enough to cover several coffins. Crypts, Wiki thought—and one did look as if it had often been lifted to receive more coffins before being closed again. Feeling curious, he strayed over to look. The inscription beneath his boots was worn and scratched, but seemed to belong to the family of a general, who had undoubtedly been the commander of the prison. Other inscriptions marked the graves of soldiers—the prison guards, most of whom had died at a very young age a hundred years ago. Prisoners were commemorated with small squared rocks set into the turf, many with just the initials and the death year.

  To his right, the walls of the old prison reared up against the serene blue of the sky, spotted with gaps that had served as windows, the rods of iron that had barred them rusted and broken like rotting teeth. Over to the left side of the burying ground a clump of dusty trees rose up against a half-fallen-in boundary wall. It was there, in the shade, that the seamen had dug the grave. Now they leaned on their shovels watching the procession arrive, their shapes muddled and blurred by the heat. First the coffin bearers joined them, and then the mourners straggled up, coalescing into a single group as they came.

  Wiki and George brought up the rear, joining the huddle just as the coffin was dropped with a loud thump into the grave. There was a bit of a hitch, as one end of the hole had not been dug deeply enough. With a few muttered curses the seamen hauled the coffin out again, and one of the diggers jumped into the hole to ply his shovel. Dirt was thrown up busily while everyone watched.

  Wiki said in an undertone to George, “E hoa, did you bring your prayer book?”

  “What?” Rochester looked first startled, and then horrified. “No—why?”

  “Because I don’t think Joel Hammond has come prepared, even though he certainly owns a Bible. He loathed Captain Reed, and won’t want to recite the obsequies. I strongly suspect you’ll be asked to do the honors.”

  “Oh God,” said George, but so it proved. The coffin was dropped back into the hole, successfully this time, and Hammond, his thin mouth twisted into his strange, secret smile, invited Captain Rochester, as the highest-ranking American here, to hold the service.

  For a little while George tried to argue his way out of it, but then his natural good manners prevailed, and after casting a hunted look about at the sky and the ruined walls, he stepped up to the graveside. A muttered rendition of the Lord’s Prayer followed, echoed by most of those present. George’s air, as he pronounced, “In the midst of life, we are in death,” was convincingly solemn, Wiki thought. Then, however, his friend ran to a stop.

  Silence took over, punctuated with Annabelle Reed’s stifled sobs, the creaking of boots as men shifted from foot to foot, and a sudden wet cough and spit as one of the grave diggers cleared his lungs. Wiki wondered if George’s mind had gone blank. As Rochester began hesitantly to speak again, however, he realized that his friend was frantically trying to adapt the rite for burial at sea—which he, like every naval officer, knew by heart—to the one for interment on land.

  “We therefore commit his body to—to the ground, to be turned into—into—ashes,” he recited, and rushed on with an air of desperation: “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust—looking for the resurrection of the body, when—when…” His voice failed. Obviously when the sea shall give up her dead was not the right phrase for the occasion.

  George looked despairingly at Wiki, who came to the rescue with the words “in sure and certain hope of eternal life.” Then, quietly but with great feeling, he added, “Haere e te hoa, ko to tatou kainga nui tena.” Everyone looked puzzled, but the brief ceremony was over. Ezekiel Reed’s weddi
ng celebrations had lasted seven days; his funeral had taken seven minutes.

  “Reminds me of a prime embarrassin’ burial I once witnessed at sea,” George confided as he and Wiki watched the four seamen fill in the grave. “When the captain came to the words We therefore commit his body to the deep, the burial party tipped up the plank at the gangway rail, just as the good fellows had been trained. But, though they gave it a jiggle, the corpse refused to drop off into the sea. The captain, going red in the face, repeated the words, We therefore commit his body, and this time the poor wretches gave the plank a manful shake, but still the corpse remained with us. He was standing up against the upright board for all the world as if he’d come back to life, and the superstitious ones amongst us were beginning to whimper. To the deep! roared the captain in a monstrous bellow; the burial party gave the plank a tremendous jerk—and off the corpse sailed.”

  “Great heavens,” said Wiki, feeling glad that the funeral procession was halfway back down the track and out of earshot of this cheerful little yarn.

  “It cartwheeled three times before it hit the water,” George assured him.

  “I’m not surprised!”

  “Then we saw this famous great nail sticking out of the plank.”

  “Which had snagged the canvas shroud and held the corpse in place?”

  “Exactly,” said George, and smiled benignly, back to his placid self now that the ordeal was over.

  The grave was filled in and the dirt patted down. The four seamen joined them, their shovels on their shoulders, grinning broadly, not even trying to pretend they had not overheard the yarn and enjoyed it. “Back to the brig,” said George cheerfully, setting himself in motion. He looked up at the sky and observed, “By the time we get there food should be just about to hit the table.”

  “Not for me,” said Wiki. “I’ll get you to drop me at the Annawan.” As she had thanked Rochester for the part he had played in the brief ceremony, Annabelle Reed had put out a hand, and without even looking at him, had gripped his wrist.