Shark Island

by Joan Druett

  But goddamn it, he thought, it was still impossible to understand why Wiki had done something so stupidly dangerous, no matter how she’d enticed him. Men were men, particularly at sea, and when the gossip ran around jealousies would arise, and there would be absolute hell to pay. Rochester vividly remembered a cruise as a junior cadet when one of the master’s mates had smuggled a girl on board. The captain, when he found out about it, had paraded the woman in front of all the men, and roared at her that she would either service none of them, or else she would service them all. George, like the girl, had been shocked—but had also quickly seen the sense in what the old man had bawled.

  Belatedly, he became aware that Mrs. Reed had run to a stop, and silence had descended. Looking at Hammond, he said, “I hear that you sailed on the Annawan when Nathaniel Palmer was in command.”

  “This is my third cruise in the unlucky old tub.”

  George was surprised. “You were on that 1829 exploring expedition, too?”

  Hammond let out a grunt of sour laughter. “If you can call it that. We didn’t discover a goddamned thing.”

  George said mildly, “I did hear that there was a lot of desertion, and that Palmer was forced to abandon the voyage because he was so short of hands.”

  At that, the Connecticut man flicked an inimical look at Jack Winter, who was clearing the table ready for the next course, and George remembered that the steward had been in the list of eight experienced sealers on board that Wiki had given him. Then Hammond said flatly, “I wouldn’t go so far as to call it ‘desertion.’ In my opinion it was nothing more or less than goddamned mutiny.”

  George blinked with surprise. “You consider desertion a form of mutiny?”

  “When one of the sealing gangs threatens to take over the ship if the captain don’t steer in a certain direction, I consider it mutiny.”

  George Rochester thought that it sounded worse than mutiny—close to piracy, in fact. The steward’s plump face was expressionless. He picked up the last plate and left the cabin. George listened to the sound of his footsteps going forward, and then asked, “Who were the troublemakers?”

  “That goddamned po-faced steward was one of them, and I can name the boatswain, Folger, too, along with his assistant, Boyd, plus a few others. Though they just numbered eight, they turned the entire crew against the captain. There’s something so blind about a certain kind of sealing man,” Hammond said with angry passion. “All he can think of is killing seals and filling the holds with skins. It’s a kinda religion with him—he has this childish belief that if the ship keeps on a-going no matter what the weather throws at ’em, they’ll blunder across a rich new sealing ground. So he gets bloody minded if it turns out that the captain has something else in mind.”

  “Something like discovery?”

  “Unless it’s the discovery of seal rookeries, aye.” Hammond paused, and then said, “It was just the same on the 1832 voyage of the Annawan, and it was the same goddamned party of men what created mischief.”

  George frowned. “But why would Captain Palmer ship the same set of men who gave him such trouble on the 1829 venture?”

  “That’s because he did intend to go sealing that time, and it’s bloody hard to find willing and experienced sealers these days. But he was askin’ for trouble, of course, and he got it. They forced him to abandon the voyage yet again, on the grounds that he wasn’t sailing where they wanted.”

  “But surely it wasn’t his fault that the schooner was taken over by desperate convicts?”

  “Was that what you heard—that the schooner was overtaken by desperate men? Well, it ain’t quite the truth,” Hammond bit out as Jack Winter came back down the stairs. “Let it be my privilege to set you right—that Nat was pleased to carry ’em to the mainland, being as they’d fought on the same side when he was sailing for Simón Bolívar.”

  George was too astounded for words. Palmer had sailed for the revolutionary—and had carried the convicts willingly? Because they’d been comrades in arms? They had been political prisoners? This was a whole new aspect of the affair. He wondered what Wiki would make of it.

  Then, he was distracted from this revelation. Winter had set down a great baking dish of some kind of pie with a golden top that smelled like heaven. Without meaning to, George sniffed luxuriously, and his stomach rumbled.

  “And if we’d stayed in South America we’d have made a goddamned fortune, because those men we rescued was influential in the new government,” Hammond went on moodily, oblivious of the pie. “But no, those goddamned sealers were determined to either go sealing or go home. I won’t stand behavior like that,” he said with a snap.

  He glanced at Annabelle Reed, his expression aggressive, and then looked back at Rochester and said, “I know exactly where I’ll take this ship once she’s fit for sea—and it ain’t no sealing ground, believe you me. That ain’t no way to make a fortune, and if those sealers don’t like it, they can leave the ship the first moment I choose—in Rio.”

  George felt extremely curious. So Hammond had definite plans for the schooner, even though the Annawan did not belong to him? He wondered what Annabelle Reed—who, as her husband’s heir, owned the Annawan now—thought of such highhanded tactics. However, she didn’t seem to be listening. Instead, she watched the steward as he set out plates, her expression brooding.

  George murmured, “I have to admit I’ve heard tales of sealers getting wonderful rich.”

  “There was a time when an eight-man gang could take twenty thousand skins in just one four-month season,” Hammond agreed. “But that was thirty years ago! Sealers who were carrying skins to market by the thousand back then are glad to sail in with a few dozen these days. It’s their own goddamned fault, you know, because they worked against the natural way of the Lord. Anyone with a brain in his head could see that it only makes sense to leave a few seals alive so they can breed some more, but instead in their blind avarice they killed every single one. They tore out the goddamned tree to get at the fruit! They didn’t care about wiping out the seals right down to the last little pup because they reckoned there was always another beach or island to discover. But they’ve run out of time—all the beaches and islands have been discovered and all the seals are gone. It’s God’s judgment on them, and it’s exactly what they damn well deserve.”

  He wiped sweat off his face, and gulped at his glass of water. Joel Hammond, Rochester mused, was as obsessive in his own way as the sealers were in theirs. Judging by his expression, Jack Winter would have liked to argue, but he didn’t have the right to open his mouth so instead he cut into the golden crust of the pie.

  Steam curled out, carrying an aroma that made George’s mouth water. He nodded thanks as a heaped plate was set in front of him, and then said tentatively, “So what are you going to do once the schooner is seaworthy again?”

  “I’m staying on the coast, that’s what—and I’m going to make the kind of money what sealers can’t even dream of. Perhaps I haven’t told you yet that when Captain Palmer was sailing for General Bolívar, I was with him as first mate?”

  George, though suitably amazed, said nothing; he’d taken his first mouthful of the pie, and his mind was focused on the delicious sensation. As far as he could tell, both the bottom crust and the top were made of grated potato, while the middle layer was packed with succulent pieces of chicken. Evidently the whole concoction had been soaked in the gravy that the chicken had been stewed in, and then baked in the oven until the potato was as redolent with flavor as the meat. George’s rich and social grandparents had kept the most famous table in Boston, but he’d never in all his life tasted anything half as delectable as this.

  Then he noticed that Annabelle Reed was poking fastidiously about her plate and eating scarcely a morsel. He wondered what was wrong with the woman’s appetite. By contrast, young Keith was gulping down his pie at a truly remarkable rate. With the expertise of hungry young midshipmen all over the seven seas, his obvious aim was to get it fir
mly packed down and then be first in line for another helping. However, he managed to say around an enormous mouthful, “If you sailed in the service of the great Bolívar, sir, you must’ve had some wonderful adventures on this coast.”

  “Aye,” agreed Hammond, looking indulgent.

  “And marvelous yarns to relate,” Keith went on, though indistinctly, because he’d engulfed another huge forkful.

  “Tales of treasure,” Hammond informed him. In contrast to his harsh moodiness of a couple of minutes earlier, he sounded so genial that Rochester kept his mouth shut, masticating instead. Not only was young Keith doing a good job of keeping the new captain of the Annawan both talkative and happy, but George, like Midshipman Keith, reckoned he could do justice to another portion.

  “True tales, sir?”

  “True as I’m sitting here. There’s one particular remarkable fine tale—of Spanish silver and a thieving shipmaster.”

  “Would you do us the favor of relating it, sir?”

  “Why not? It happened back in 1823, when Bolívar’s troops were marching on the town of Lima, and Bolívar learned from his spies that the Spanish merchants had put the bullion from the town treasury onto the ship Mary Dear, commanded by a man by the name of William Thompson. According to the way we was told it, Thompson’s instructions were to keep his offing until he heard the outcome of the battle. If the city held out, he was to return the bullion, and if the Spanish were defeated, he was to take the treasure to Panama.”

  “Captain Thompson must have had a wonderful reputation for honesty, sir.”

  “Silver tongue, more like,” grunted Hammond. “Anyway, once Bolívar heard of it, he hired Captain Nat to chase down and capture the Mary Dear. It would’ve made our fortunes in prize money if we’d managed it. Damn it, though, Thompson got away. Our intelligence was wrong, and we chased in the wrong goddamned direction.”

  “So what happened to the bullion, sir?”

  “Thompson stole it—sailed off with it.”

  “Good God, sir, did he? So what did the Spanish do about that?”

  “Chased him down and caught him up, but couldn’t take him without a terrific battle. Everyone on the Mary Dear was killed save Thompson and his mate, but when they seized the ship they found the bullion wasn’t there any more—it was gone! Thompson had buried it on an island instead of delivering it at Panama the way he was supposed to. Then he and the mate escaped from the Spanish and got to the Galápagos, where they was rescued by none other than Captain Nat and me.”

  “And they revealed the secret of where they’d buried the treasure?”

  “Nope. They died of fever.”

  “What a blow, sir!”

  “Aye,” said Hammond, nodding. “But I have a damn good idea of where it is.”

  George had trouble to stop himself from shaking his head in wonder. He’d come across a lot of dreamers in his time, Wilkes and his vision of discovering Antarctica being a prime example, but in his humble estimation this fellow had all the others beat hollow. Hammond might deride the sealers for their misguided faith in some to-be-discovered sealing ground, but at least their dreams were firmly based on past experience, while anyone who thought a pirate would bury his loot instead of spending it on riotous living was horribly deluded. George also wondered how Thompson and his mate had escaped the Spanish. This, he mused, was a huge great hole in the yarn.

  Keith, however, was not nearly so cynical. “That’s the best tale I ever heard, sir,” he said, and then added candidly, “And the best sea pie I ever ate, too.”

  By some miracle George Rochester had finished first. He leaned back so that Jack Winter could serve him more pie, and could have sworn he heard the steward mutter, “Foreign muck, not fit for civilized stomachs.”

  Ignoring this, he said to Hammond, “Should we make plans about heaving the schooner down? Time is of the essence, you know!”

  “That it is,” Joel Hammond said, abruptly brought to business. He shoveled in the rest of his pie and then signed to Jack Winter to clear the dishes away. That done, he told him to summon the two boatswains and the Swallow’s carpenter, who were eating with the men forward and then looked at Annabelle, saying coldly, “If you don’t mind—?”

  The gentlemen stood up and looked at her expectantly, while she looked uncertainly back at them. While it was evident she understood that it was time for her to leave the table, George judged from the rather lost look on her face that she had no idea where to go. He waited for her to disappear into one of the staterooms that were sited either side of the corridor at the bottom of the companionway, but to his surprise she went up onto deck. As he sat down again, he wondered where she was headed. Surely not the galley, he thought, but could hear her footsteps going forward.

  Then Folger and the Swallow’s boatswain and carpenter arrived, ready and eager to share their professional expertise, and the conversation settled down into a great deal of wise talk about warping the schooner into shallower water, rafts, and anchors, and heaving tackle. The two boatswains consulted the carpenter, and grave opinions given, until finally, after four hours of intense discussion, they’d all come to the conclusion that it could be done within two weeks if the weather stayed fair.

  Said Hammond, “We’ll start discharging the after house first thing in the morning.”

  George murmured, “So soon?”

  “You’ll take Mrs. Reed on board the Swallow?”

  “I’m afraid not,” said George very firmly. “Our accommodations are extremely limited.”

  “She can have a tent on the beach,” Hammond decided. “And when the ship’s seaworthy, I’ll move in here. It’s my right—I’m the captain of this goddamned ship!”

  Twenty-eight

  As George’s boat pulled toward the brig he could hear singing. The sea was like black silk shot with luminescence, drops of water glowing blue as they fell from the blades of the oars. Two baritone voices echoed in harmony from the deck of the Swallow, joined in counterpoint by a third voice from the rigging aloft, the effect magical in the starlit night. George silently shook his head. If Forsythe had been on board this musical performance would have been considered a flogging offense: not only was the trio singing in Samoan, but chanteying was forbidden in the U.S. Navy.

  As the boat clicked against the side, the singing stopped. Wiki met George at the rail, still carrying his ashwood pole. “E hoa?” he said. His grin was just a trifle uncertain.

  George stood in silence for a long moment, his hands lightly clasped behind the seat of his white dress trousers, surveying him very thoughtfully, indeed. He treasured being Wiki Coffin’s friend—having such an unusual and colorful friend made him feel colorful and exotic himself. Most of the time, however, they weren’t even aware of their different backgrounds—because they had shared so many adventures, George supposed. With so many experiences in common, they often knew without trying what the other was thinking; at times they laughed together before other people even saw the joke. Every now and then, though, George was aware of a cultural gulf, and he was experiencing one of those troubling moments now.

  Then his glance fell on the ashwood spar, and he realized with professional interest that Wiki had been working on his taiaha—what George thought of as a spear. Much had been accomplished in just a short time—the width of the shaft had been trimmed to half of the original diameter, and the two ends, one curved to a teardrop-shaped point and the other flat and paddlelike, had been roughed out.

  He exclaimed, “It looks like a weapon already!”

  “The shape was already there in the wood,” Wiki said modestly. That was the nature of his people’s craft—their carvers looked for the shape that was already there, instead of forcing the wood, bone, or stone to yield to their will. However, as George knew from long association, the singing had helped the work along, too.

  Then Wiki held the taiaha poised in his hands, turned it swiftly end to end, sighted down the shaft, and whirled it around his shoulders. Looking at Roch
ester, he challenged, “You have your pretty cut-and-thrust sword. Try to put a dent in my carcass.”

  George studied him, vividly aware of what a contrast they made—that right now, the cultural difference between them was a chasm. He, Captain Rochester, commander of the U.S. brig Swallow, was a glitteringly formal figure in dress uniform. Wiki, the native linguister, was barefooted and bare-chested, his long black hair trailing over his shoulders, his taiaha-in-the-making held vertically before him with the tonguelike point upward, the epitome of a warrior from the far-off Pacific.

  Rochester mused that Wiki had also put him in a deucedly difficult position. If he drew his sword, it would be a contest between sharp metal and dull wood, and despite being extremely cross with him right now, he didn’t want to wound his best shipmate. If they’d been alone it could have been dismissed as a joke, but the hands on duty were watching, joined by more men who were trickling out of the forecastle. So George grinned evilly, tossed his hat aside, whipped out his fancy sword, and flourished it.

  Up came the taiaha, held diagonally across Wiki’s body. Rochester smoothly lunged and thrust—to find his sword easily parried by a swift push of the wood. He attacked more seriously, but each time his blade was jerked aside. Then Wiki moved in for his first attack, and George found to his surprise that the spear-shaped end of the taiaha, which he’d been taking great pains to avoid, was just for jabbing and feinting, while the broad paddle-shaped other end was the business part of the weapon. Indeed, he realized, it wasn’t a spear at all, but much more like that greatly feared two-handed traditional weapon of the English peasant, the quarterstaff. George dodged the blow by the skin of his teeth, ran back a couple of paces, and then came forward with a great deal more caution.

  The men on deck were starting to urge them on, caught up in the unusual competition. Slowly, they circled each other. After feinting twice, Wiki lunged forward again—and again George only narrowly missed being rapped. However, he noticed that when Wiki was on the verge of a pounce, the toes of his leading foot clenched for a better grip on the deck.