Shark Island

by Joan Druett

  He didn’t rush it, however, instead waiting for an opportunity to broach the subject in a casual kind of way. For a long while he and the men chatted casually, sitting in a companionable circle in the shade of the scrubby tree, sucking fish bones and throwing them to the gulls. It was a peaceful scene. Surf swished rhythmically, lacing the edge of the golden sand with white, and while there was a little puff of cloud clinging to the black and emerald triangular pinnacle that gave Shark Island its name, the sky was otherwise a deep, quiet blue. For these men, as Wiki knew from his own experience, being here was a luxurious respite from their hard life at sea.

  Conversation came easily, as Wiki was a seaman who knew the ways of other seamen. Respect was given, and received: He knew they were the pick of the crews of the discovery fleet; and they knew that he had done his apprenticeship in whaleships, which might have been the most disdained of the merchant fleet of New England, but whose captains and officers were famous for training better seamen than any other branch of the trade.

  “I hear you were royally entertained by the steward of the Annawan yesterday,” Wiki observed at last, throwing away the bones of the last succulent fish head. For some reason, he’d noticed, Americans didn’t like to eat the heads. If Sua and Tana had been there he would have had to divide up the bounty, but as it was, he had them all to himself.

  “Bit too slick, that Jack Winter,” said one with his lips pulled down.

  “Winter?”

  “The fat old steward,” said another, and spat to one side. The men were looking at each other with identical expressions of wry amusement. “Gammoned us good, he did,” said one. “When Cap’n Reed bid him carry us a bottle of grog, he brung lemon squash, too. Told us to drink up the lemon to take the edge off our thirst, so we’d ’preciate the rum better. But all the time we was working through the lemon, he was helping himself to the grog.”

  “Gossips worse’n a woman,” said a man with a New Bedford accent, his tone disparaging. The other five nodded in agreement. As Wiki was very aware, having spent years in the crowded confines of the forecastle, proper seamen knew that minding one’s own business was a virtue, and a buttoned-up lip a distinct asset.

  “Did this Jack Winter leave the fo’c’sle deck at all?” Wiki pursued; he remembered that Annabelle had complained that the steward hadn’t responded when Ezekiel had hollered out.

  They all laughed. “Stuck to us like a leech so long as there was rum in that bottle.”

  “What about the men who stayed behind when the boats went off? How many were there?”

  The six thought a long moment, and then the New Bedforder said, “Four.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Aye—but not counting the captain, of course.”

  So the crew of the Annawan totaled sixteen, Wiki mused; it was a number that seemed about right for a sealer. The schooner was small enough to be sailed by four, plus the captain, so the twelve extra men meant that two six-man sealing gangs could be put on shore once they arrived on the ground. Coincidentally, it exactly matched the number of crew on the Swallow when the cutter was off—George, Wiki himself, Midshipman Keith, the boatswain, the carpenter, the cook, the steward, the gunner, and eight hands. George Rochester had mentioned a complement of seventeen on the Annawan, he remembered, but realized that he must have included Annabelle.

  He said, “I wonder who those four men were?”

  The cutter’s men consulted among themselves. One, of course, had been the steward, Jack Winter. But, while they had distinct memories of him, as he had been with them—and their bottle of rum—just about the whole of the time, they were otherwise exasperatingly vague. Because they had sat in the bows, forward of the windlass, they hadn’t had much of a view of the deck, not unless they stood up and turned round for any reason.

  “What about the man who was working aloft?” one of them prompted.

  “He was a Gee,” said the New Bedforder, using the whalemen’s derogatory term for a Portuguese.

  “Aye,” said the other. Now that the old whaleman had mentioned it, he, too, remembered seeing a Spanish-looking type in the mizzenmast lower rigging, after he’d stood up and looked to see what Mrs. Reed was making her ruckus about.

  Then another seaman reckoned he’d seen the cook come out of the galley—but that had been a lot earlier, and had been just a glimpse because he hadn’t been stood up at the time, and no sooner had he glimpsed him than the fellow had vanished, he said.

  “He went back into the galley?” Wiki asked.

  “Well, I didn’t actually see him get back inside,” the seaman allowed. “But it stands to reason that he did, don’t it, because Mrs. Reed spoke to someone in there.”

  “You mean when you first arrived at the schooner?” said Wiki, puzzled.

  “No, no. Well, she was in there when we first boarded,” said the seaman. “Not that we knew it, not until she left the galley to go aft to the captain’s cabin. But about a half hour later, just after we heard the lieutenant and the midshipman calling out to us and started to turn around to look, I glimpsed her hurrying helter-skelter to the galley. When she got there she called somethin’ through the doorway, which proves that the cook was there, don’t it? Then she whirled around and ran back to the cabin. A couple of minutes after that, and out of the cabin she burst again, yellin’ murder and mayhem, and that’s when we stood up for a proper look at what the hell was goin’ on.”

  “And you saw Lieutenant Forsythe and Passed Midshipman Kingman come along the deck?”

  “Aye—though they was running back and forth, too, what with all the commotion.”

  “Did you hear what Mrs. Reed called out to the cook?”

  The seaman frowned mightily, but finally shook his head. “Even if I heard it, I reckon it was foreign.”

  So that accounted for three of the men on board—the steward, the cook, and the man aloft—and seemed to substantiate what Forsythe had said, even if the details were blurred. Wiki pursued, “So who was the fourth man left on board?”

  “The bo’sun’s mate,” said one of the men positively.

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “He’s a big cove, very noticeable. He came out of the sternward end of the forward house when Mr. Hammond called for two boats’ crews, with a knife and a hammer in his hands. Another man came out with him, an older feller, and I reckon he was the bo’sun, because he gave the big young feller instructions before he departed.”

  “And after the boats had left, this man went back into the forward house?”

  “Aye. And then we heard a lot of hammering. He was working in there, all right.”

  Wiki said carefully, “Any idea why two boats went to the Swallow, when there was only occasion for one?”

  There was a bit of a silence, while three of the cutter’s men leaned back on their elbows ruminating at the sky through pipe smoke, and the New Bedforder leaned forward to pluck up an oyster from the edge of the fire. As he bent over he accidentally broke wind, and everyone laughed, including the culprit himself. Then he said around the carefully slurped hot mouthful, “I don’t reckon there’s very good feeling on board that there schooner. They could’ve been glad of the chance to get away for a bit.”

  “I don’t hold with women a-going to sea,” said one.

  “Never a truer word,” agreed another.

  “They’re powerful unlucky,” said another, and they all nodded sagely. “Thank God Cap’n Wilkes don’t carry his wife on the Vin. Two cap’ns on the quarterdeck be one too many by far.”

  To Wiki, it was news that the commodore of a U.S. Navy fleet had the option of carrying his wife. He also meditated that Mrs. Wilkes, if present, might have moderated Captain Wilkes’s increasingly erratic behavior. However, instead of responding to this, he asked, “So you think Mrs. Reed is to blame for the bad morale on the Annawan?”

  “Oh aye,” said the New Bedforder. “I mean to say, it figures, things bein’ the way they are with Hammond. There’s not a man
on board who likes her, and Hammond in particular. Truth be told, he can’t stand the sight or sound of her.”

  Wiki said, “Does Captain Hammond hold a grudge because he was forced to shift his berth to the forward house, perhaps?”

  “Wa-al, according to the steward, he’s got a bigger grudge than that,” said one.

  “An incurable hand for gossip, that man,” said the New Bedforder with deep disapproval. “Stewards are ever so, I guess, but Jack Winter really ought to keep a stiller tongue in his head.”

  “What did Winter tell you?”

  “That Mr. Hammond and Mrs. Reed had an understanding once, but then she became the captain’s wife.”

  Wiki said, thunderstruck, “An understanding to be married?”

  “Aye,” said the New Bedforder, and nodded with his mouth pulled down. He spat out one fishbone and picked his teeth with another, his expression disdainful.

  “In N’Orleans, he told us,” said another. “She met Hammond when he dropped anchor there, and then Cap’n Reed later. Played ’em both like fish, or so I heard, and naturally became affianced to the one what was richer.”

  “That Jack Winter should keep his mouth buttoned up,” said the New Bedforder. “Gossips like an old woman.”

  As if in emphasis, the clap of a rifle shot echoed from the prison high above, followed by a shout. The cutter’s men sat up, turning to stare up the cliff.

  “That be the lieutenant,” observed one in a tranquil tone, and leaned back on his elbows again.

  “Shot a rabbit, d’you reckon?” said another. “That would be a tasty treat.”

  “I’d fancy a nice young goat, myself,” said the New Bedforder.

  “Aye, a goat would go good—roasted over a fire with hot stones inside to cook the innards.”

  “And sprigs of rosemary to make it proper nice.”

  “Aye,” said another wistfully. “My ma used to cook a goat like that.”

  Wiki grasped his chance to leave. Silently opting out of this culinary conversation, he clambered to his feet and set off up the track.

  It was hot away from the shade where they’d been eating, and the gulls flew a long way up in the sky as if to avoid the reflected heat from the sea and sand, but it was good to stretch his legs. Wiki had his head bent as he climbed, his mind moodily turning over the distasteful notion that Annabelle had had a relationship with Joel Hammond. He felt as if she should have told him; it was a jolt to find that she had held back something so important. Perhaps, he thought, the scurrilous gossip wasn’t true. The higher he clambered, though, the more uncomfortable the concept became.

  Fifteen

  When Wiki surmounted the last traverse toward the fortified walls, he looked up to find that Forsythe was aiming a rifle at him. He stopped, and surveyed the southerner with utter disgust. Forsythe looked like the last three days of a dissipated life and stank even worse, downwind. He was still wearing uniform, but stained white breeches, grimy knee-high boots, and an untied stock did not improve his appearance in the slightest. The fancy claw hammer coat had been discarded somewhere, and his shirtsleeves were rolled up to bare the snake tattoos that coiled from wrist to elbow on each of his brawny forearms.

  “Don’t shoot me, I’m innocent,” Wiki growled, and clambered up the last slope.

  Close up, the stink of rum and tobacco was overwhelming. Wiki stepped aside a pace to get into clearer air. “Weren’t you jest a little nervous that my finger might twitch on the trigger?” Forsythe queried with a crooked grin. “You wouldn’t be the first New Zealander I’ve shot, you know.”

  “You’ve passed up too many good opportunities for me to start worrying now,” Wiki said ironically. And there was no point in trying to run away—Forsythe was a superb marksman, even when too drunk for speech.

  They were standing where Wiki had glimpsed Forsythe that morning, and the view over golden sands and white-edged surf and sea was stupendous. Wiki could see the Swallow bobbing lightly on a tapestry of green and turquoise ripples, and the Annawan wallowing with a sick gush of water pouring from her side. The watch was pumping manfully, obviously, but their efforts looked increasingly doomed.

  He turned to look about the huge courtyard that fronted the ruined prison. Close up, he could see why Ezekiel Reed had found it so hilarious that the Peacock lookouts had taken fright; if the Annawan had not been in such dire need of a good navy carpenter, it would have indeed been a capital joke. The cannon that had looked so ferocious from a distance were blotched with age, rust running from where they had been spiked. Judging by the abundant white splatters and blown straw, for many seasons past the gulls had used the fallen-in parts of the redoubt as nesting places. On the far side of the cracked, sun-scorched pavement the seaward wall of the prison reared up, looking even more decrepit than the side that overlooked the burial ground.

  Wiki looked at Forsythe again and said, “What were you shooting at, anyway?”

  Instead of answering, Forsythe said, “Is Zack down on the beach?”

  Wiki frowned, because he hadn’t given Kingman much thought at all. “No—I took it for granted that he was with you.”

  “The silly bastard’s asleep somewhere with an empty bottle in his fist, I reckon. I fired the shot to rouse him up.”

  “Your men are going to be disappointed,” Wiki observed dryly. “They’re expecting a tender young goat at the very least.”

  “Have you been pestering those poor bastards?”

  “Just passing the time of day,” Wiki said. “They settled in very comfortably, down there.” Then he looked Forsythe up and down again, and said with distaste, “Didn’t you wonder what they would get up to on the beach while you and Zachary Kingman spent the night on the schooner?”

  Forsythe looked affronted. “As you noticed, my men are perfectly capable of looking after themselves—and we only went to pay Mrs. Reed our respects, and be a supporting presence during the prayers. How were we to know that the wake was goin’ to turn into a goddamned spree?”

  Wiki said, “Mrs. Reed informed me that you invited her to sail to Rio on the brig, and read her a lesson on ranking in the U.S. Navy—you explained that George Rochester outranks you only when you’re on board his ship, and that you outrank him everywhere else.”

  Forsythe flushed red with anger, and snapped, “Wa-al, it ain’t nothin’ but the goddamned truth! And Annabelle had no objection to my reassuring company, neither,” he said, and leered.

  An unexpected rush of hot, jealous rage hit Wiki. Involuntarily, his elbows flexed, and his quivering fists clenched at the level of his bulging biceps. He wanted to yell at Forsythe that Annabelle had virtually accused him of murdering her husband, and that he had questioned the cutter’s men in the hope of proving that she had been mistaken. Instead, he turned away to hide his expression, striding off across the courtyard in the direction of the prison entrance.

  He heard Forsythe’s footsteps, and glanced back to see the southerner following him, rifle hanging loosely from one hand. Then he was through the doorway. It was suddenly much cooler, and very gloomy.

  He was in a cavernous stone hall. Corridors leading off to either side were lined with cells, most of them with their bars rusted loose. Ahead, a wide stone staircase wound on and on upward. There was rubbish everywhere—fallen rubble, broken furniture, collapsed racks that had once held firearms. Curious, Wiki went down the left-hand passage and into a few of the cells, where he made an attempt to read the scratched words—names, dates, enigmatic messages—on the walls, all very old and meaningless. There was a chilling sense of … waiting, a preternatural recognition of the thousands of hours that had been waited out by hundreds of imprisoned men, endless time endured in the numb hope of release or even, maybe, just for an explanation of why they were here.

  He returned to the hall, where Forsythe was standing looking around, and said, “What kind of men were incarcerated here—did Captain Reed say?”

  “Nope, he did not,” Forsythe said. He spat a yellow
gob onto the old stone floor. “But I hear that prisons on islands like this are reserved for the worst kind of bastard, on account of it’s harder for ’em to escape when surrounded by sea.”

  So they would’ve been hardened criminals—or men with the wrong political views. Then Wiki’s attention was seized by a big stack of squared timber beams leaning against the highest wall. He went over and hefted one, bracing his feet in a pile of rubbish to do it—and Forsythe fired his gun. The ball whistled past Wiki’s thigh. The deafening report sent echoes crashing back and forth in the huge stone space.

  Wiki shouted, “What the hell?” Then he saw the snake, headless and writhing beside his right boot, and heard Forsythe’s derisive grunt of laughter.

  “You oughter take more care,” he said. “This island is alive with ’em.”

  Wiki said nothing, waiting until his heart stopped hammering.

  “They don’t have snakes in New Zealand, huh?” Forsythe queried on the same sardonic note.

  “No,” Wiki said shortly. When Forsythe had finished reloading the gun, he nodded at the lengths of lumber and said, “What do you reckon those were for?”

  “For gallows trees—and for making triangles for floggin’ the poor buggers against.”

  “What makes you so sure of that?”

  “Figures, in a place like this.”

  He was probably right, Wiki thought. In Sydney Town, in the penal settlement of New South Wales, a flogging triangle was permanently set up beneath the windows of the barracks where the female convicts were held, to wrest the maximum humiliation from the public punishment, and the ground beneath it was eternally sodden with blood. However, balks of timber like these were also used in shipyards.

  Looking at them thoughtfully, he said, “When you promised Annabelle that we would carry her to Rio on the Swallow, did it occur to you that we might be forced to carry the entire complement of the Annawan there?”