Shark Island

by Joan Druett

  Thinking about it, he lunged and thrust, watched Wiki dance back on the balls of his feet, and then saw those feet flatten as Wiki stepped forward again. The pointed tip of the taiaha passed his face in another feint, and then the taiaha was reversed with a quick flourish. The toes clenched, George swayed back and ducked forward in one smooth motion, the taiaha passed through empty air—and when George straightened his sword was resting on Wiki’s shoulder.

  The men gave a round of cheers, led lustily by Midshipman Keith. “Well done,” said Wiki. He grinned widely as they shook hands, and George suddenly wondered if he hoped that the duel had settled their differences, and they could return to being comrades again. However, he said nothing. Wiki stowed his taiaha-in-the-making in the galley, where he’d screwed hooks on the wall behind the huge iron stove, so that the heat and smoke would harden the wood. Then Rochester led the way to the saloon, where he silently shed his coat.

  “Well, e hoa?” said Wiki, sitting down.

  “They’ll be discharging the schooner before breakfast.”

  Wiki frowned down at the coffee he was pouring. “Isn’t that rather premature?”

  “Joel Hammond can’t wait to turn Mrs. Reed out of the captain’s cabin.”

  Wiki’s expression became troubled. When he didn’t speak, George went on, “Hammond had interesting things to say about the eight old sealers on board—that on that exploring voyage they talked the rest of the seamen into forcing Palmer to turn back home because he searched for scientific discoveries instead of new sealing grounds. Then he went on to tell me that on the next voyage, the 1832 one, the Annawan wasn’t overcome by convicts—that Palmer was rescuing them.”

  “It was Palmer’s idea to set them free?”

  “Aye. It seems that the convicts were Palmer’s comrades in arms during Bolívar’s campaign—that they were political prisoners and not criminals at all.”

  “And he gave up the sealing venture to do it?”

  “Aye. I guess there were old loyalties involved.”

  “Well, that surely is a new view,” Wiki marveled.

  “Hammond also went on at length about the blind greed of sealers, how they have chopped down the tree to get at the fruit and so on and so forth, and that it’s the judgment of God that there are no seal rookeries left to find. Now that he has the Annawan he has no intention of sealing, he said.”

  “But the schooner isn’t his!”

  “I had a job to stop from pointing that out to him myself, old chap. Jack Winter, who was serving out the food as Hammond was carrying on, didn’t like what he was hearing one bit, either. Don’t you reckon it’s strange that the steward should be one of that eight-strong gang? I can see him fomenting rebellion, but camping out on a rock-bound, ice-ridden seal rookery? No.”

  Midshipman Keith came out of the stateroom at that moment, having changed into workaday dungarees, and said brightly, “Uncommon tasty grub they gave us, don’t you reckon, sir? I do confess I could do justice to another big chunk of that chicken stew pie.”

  “After the way you stuffed your stomach, my lad,” said George sternly, “you should be ashamed of yourself.”

  “And that was a capital Madeira too, don’t you think, sir?” said Keith, unabashed.

  “Madeira?” said Wiki.

  “Hammond didn’t throw it overboard with the grog,” said George. Then he went on musingly, “Soon it won’t be possible for Festin to do any cooking on board the schooner, and it’s not feasible to shift the schooner’s galley on shore because the stove is too heavy to lower into a whaleboat. So I’m toying with the idea of bringing him aboard the Swallow—he could take over our galley and do the cooking for all, freeing up our man for other work. It would be easy enough to carry meals to the men on the beach.”

  Keith exclaimed, “What a wonderful idea, sir!”

  “I’ll discuss it with Hammond first thing in the morning,” George decided, and with his face split wide in a gratified grin, Midshipman Keith headed off up the stairs to take charge of the deck.

  “Something odd, though,” George ruminated. “The lady didn’t seem partial to it.”

  “Partial to what?” said Wiki.

  “Festin’s chicken stew pie. She took a nibble or two, but otherwise just pushed it around with her fork.”

  Wiki grimaced. “That’s because she thought it was parrot.”

  “Parrot?”

  George turned and looked at the burned parrot, which was still perched on the back of his chair. Its innards were back to functioning, he noticed, because there were droppings in amongst the dripped water on the seat.

  He looked at Wiki again and urged, “Explain yourself.”

  “When Annabelle gave the parrot to Festin she expected him to kill it and add it to the pot. Instead, he gave the parrot to me—but she doesn’t know that.”

  “I wonder what parrot tastes like?”

  “No doubt that’s what she was wondering while she pushed her pie about,” said Wiki. “So what plan does Hammond have for the schooner after she’s fixed?”

  “Treasure hunting.”

  “You’re joking.”

  “Ask young Keith, if you don’t believe me. Hammond told him a farfetched tale about the merchants of Lima entrusting the contents of the town treasury to a devious skipper who buried it instead of carrying it to Panama the way he’d been instructed. The boy fairly lapped it up. You’ve been overtaken as the best tale-spinner of his acquaintance, I’m afraid.”

  “You mean Joel Hammond told the story of the Mary Dear?”

  “You’ve heard it already?”

  “E hoa, I thought everyone in the world had heard it already.”

  “Good God, you never fail to surprise me. But is it true?”

  “It could be, I suppose—but Hammond can’t be serious, surely. If that bullion from the Lima treasury really was buried, it’s bound to have been dug up since. After all, people have been hunting for it for fifteen years now.” Frowning, Wiki went on, “What did Annabelle say about this plan to take the schooner treasure-hunting?”

  “Nothing. Not a word.”

  “She just sat tamely and allowed him to make these farfetched plans involving the schooner, even though the Annawan belongs to her?”

  “Aye. She seemed to be under his thumb altogether. When Hammond decided to get down to business and discuss the technicalities of heaving down, he virtually ordered her to leave the table, and she obeyed even though she didn’t seem to have anywhere to go.”

  Wiki’s expression became intensely worried. After a pause during which he was obviously choosing words, he said, “I’d like to be there when the schooner is being unloaded—not just because of the bullion, but to see which of the Annawan hands has a stock of blue-striped shirts.”

  George shook his head without an instant’s hesitation. “No,” he said decisively. “You will stop on board of the brig.”

  Twenty-nine

  George Rochester went over to the Annawan at daybreak, to find the men laboring at the pumps with new enthusiasm, freeing her up for warping out of the deep channel where she was trapped. He sought out Hammond to discuss the matter of the cook, got his agreement, and then headed to the bay where Forsythe and the cutter’s men were camped.

  To his surprise and pleasure, he found that every last balk of timber had been lowered to the beach, and that the cutter’s men had set with gusto to the job of connecting them together to make a sturdy raft. Typically, Forsythe had claimed territory: The largest U.S. flag the Swallow possessed was now flying grandly from the tall flagpole on the forecourt of the ruined prison, a signal to all those who passed the island, and privateers in particular, that Americans were in possession.

  Rochester headed back to the schooner, to find that a kedge anchor had been lodged in shallower water twenty yards closer to the beach, and the stout hawser that was secured to this had been attached to the windlass. Orders, shouted by Hammond and echoed by Midshipman Keith, rattled back and forth as hands wor
ked manfully at the windlass to winch the hawser in, shortening it so that the schooner was heaved up to the kedge. For some time it didn’t seem as if the waterlogged old box would move, but then, inch by inch, the hull groaned and yielded. By noon the Annawan was anchored exactly where the carpenter wanted her to be, out of the deep, fast-moving current but still with water under her keel.

  Bags and barrels of provisions were coming out of the between-decks area, swayed into boats, and sent over to the Swallow. Robert Festin, looking confused and uncomprehending, accompanied the first load, clinging to the side of the boat and looking extremely white-faced. At the same time, there was a great commotion in the after house as massive furniture was heaved around. The big saloon table was manhandled up the companionway with a lot of cursing and shouting, and then dumped over the rail to float upside down, forming a makeshift raft. Buoyed with empty barrels lashed along its sides, it was towed ashore by a line, while a couple of men aboard plied long poles in a vigorous effort to keep it from upsetting.

  First to go were the heavy drapes that had covered the bulkheads. Bundled onto the raft, they went off to shore, where a couple of other men were erecting a frame for a tent. No sooner was it covered with one of the curtains than Annabelle Reed, looking flushed and ruffled, was hustled off to the beach. Then the rest of the furniture came up. Most of the great wardrobes and dressers had to be taken apart, but still the pieces were being carried up the companionway at a tremendous pace.

  The Annawan was being unloaded faster than anyone could have imagined. Soon the captain’s cabin was cleared, and the trapdoor to the lazaretto—the captain’s private hold in the stern—was opened, and Captain Reed’s personal store of trade goods was heaved up to be taken on shore, too. Rochester, watching interestedly, saw a stream of the usual kind of things—kegs of tobacco and bales of cloth, plus crates of the goods like scissors, clocks, folding combs, and mirrors that were colloquially known as “Yankee notions,” and which found a ready market all about the Atlantic and Pacific.

  There was not a single silver coin amongst the lot, so George Rochester went on shore to cast an eye over what had been dropped on the beach. Annabelle Reed was sitting on a lady chair just inside the opening of her tent, trunks and baskets scattered around her feet. Bizarrely, someone had propped a tall vase of painted feathers on one side of the entrance, making a strange contrast to the live birds that cawed and circled in the air overhead. They were angry, it seemed, by having been evicted from the shrub that grew luxuriantly nearby, and which provided some shade. She’d made no attempt to unpack, but instead was moodily watching the frenetic activity in the bay.

  Rochester directed men into collecting up bric-a-brac as it was dropped without ceremony from the floating table. Lacking any kind of direction from their owner, who seemed utterly uninterested in the fate of her chattels, they piled it up on a dry patch of grass. George opened trunks and dressers, but found nothing but clothes and table linen. Then, the last of the furniture having been stacked, the gang set off a decent distance to erect two big tents for the seamen of the Annawan, and a smaller one for Hammond and his first mate.

  George watched them go, and then approached Annabelle. She was still perched on the low chair, her head bent in deep thought, but when she sensed his presence she looked up. George watched the black-fringed eyes focus, and then she demanded without any preamble, “Where’s Wiki Coffin?”

  “I’ve put him in charge of the brig while we’re working on the schooner.”

  “But why?”

  “There is the ever-present danger of privateers,” he said smoothly.

  “Oh,” she said, and looked down while she thought. Then her lashes lifted again and she said, “Have you finished with my husband’s box of papers?”

  George shook his head. He had no intention of returning it to her, because he didn’t trust her not to burn the lot before the Brazilian authorities had a chance to check the certificates.

  “But it’s mine and I need it!”

  “Why?” George inquired. His tone was light, but he was studying her alertly.

  “My husband’s personal papers are in the box, as well as the ones for the ship—and I’m his widow, so I need them, don’t you see?”

  George kept silent, and after a moment she tilted her head on one side, looked up at him appealingly, and said, “Why won’t you allow me to move onto the Swallow?”

  “The quarters are cramped; you would be very uncomfortable there.”

  She pouted, and said, “Who is going to watch over me at night?”

  “Why do you need someone to watch?” She was no more at risk on shore than she was on the schooner, George thought—except, perhaps, for snakes. There was a barrel just inside the tent that was filled with the knives, clubs, muskets, and pistols that had hung from the wall of the after house. He poked around in it, making a lot of noise but finding no silver coins, and then, straightening, he said to her, “Do you know how to load a gun?”

  To his surprise, she laughed. “Didn’t Wiki tell you that I am fisher folk—Cajun? Captain Rochester, I could load a gun and shoot a copperhead before I could even talk.”

  “Perhaps you should carry a couple of pistols.”

  “Perhaps.” She looked around vaguely and said, “There will be a belt with holsters somewhere. I could wear that, I suppose.”

  “Do that,” said Rochester encouragingly. The shadows were growing long, and in the distance a plume of smoke wisped from the chimney of the Swallow’s galley. Midshipman Keith and the carpenter’s gang had already returned on board, and the boatswain and his men were waiting at the edge of the surf. It was time to get back to the brig.

  “I’m starving,” Annabelle complained. “Where’s our cook? The peeshwank hasn’t even started a fire yet.”

  “Robert Festin’s on the Swallow,” Rochester said. “It seemed more efficient for him to take over our galley and prepare food for all.”

  She brightened. “So we eat on board the Swallow?”

  George shook his head. “No, it’s easier to bring the cooked food out to the beach.”

  “Like a picnic?”

  She pronounced the word picnic in a very foreign way, peek-neek. George said easily, “Picnics are fun, I am told.” The cutter’s men certainly enjoyed them, he thought.

  He turned to take his leave, and she called out anxiously, “But how about you and your men—don’t you picnic, too?”

  “No,” he said. “The crew of the Swallow will eat on board the brig.” Without looking at her again, he left her and walked down to the boat.

  As they pulled for the brig they passed the floating table, which was heading shoreward yet again, this time loaded high with a great mixture of clutter, evidently from tidying up the last of the paraphernalia in the captain’s cabin. Though it was obviously unstable, it was plain that the men who were poling it couldn’t have cared less. When the top of the heap teetered dangerously, they simply stood back and let the bulk of it thunder overboard instead of attempting to save it. The heavier pieces fell to the bottom at once, leaving a whirl of clothing and pieces of occasional furniture.

  An empty birdcage floated by. George bent down, scooped it up, and dropped it into the bottom of the boat. Now, he thought with great satisfaction, he would get his chair back; he would sit in his rightful place at the saloon table while he tried out the first, doubtlessly ambrosial, meal cooked by Festin on the brig. They had killed a couple of the hogs from the Annawan, and he looked forward eagerly to fragrant roast pork.

  Instead, Midshipman Keith met him at the rail, his expression utterly tragic. “Nothing went right for him,” he mourned. “The stove heats to the wrong temperature, and has an oven that’s not quite the right size. The firewood sparks too much, the tormentor is nothing like the right size and shape, and everything is crooked, or bent, or not clean enough, or stowed in the wrong place. Now, the great cook is in tears.”

  George blinked. “What’s a tormentor?”

 
“A kind of big fork,” said Wiki, arriving up alongside Constant Keith, and confirmed the sad news. Robert Festin, the famous creator of succulent salt pork dumplings and truly magnificent chicken stew pie, had dashed all their wonderful expectations by burning the anticipated roast.

  Thirty

  Sua said in Samoan, “Did you see Sekatoa’s red arse?”

  Wiki looked at him consideringly. The two Samoans were sitting cross-legged on the deck of the Swallow in the shade of the foremast, chatting while Wiki worked on his taiaha. It was toward the end of their watch below—their four hours’ off duty—and Sua, as usual, was harping on about the great white pointer, mango taniwha, which had attacked Wiki and carried off Kingman’s corpse while he, Sua, was watching. It had made a strong impression on him, and over the ten intervening days he had convinced himself that the shark was none other than the great Sekatoa, the shark spirit of Tonga.

  “No,” said Wiki. “I did not see his red arse. And why should he be in the Atlantic?”

  “Maatu, the chief of Niuatoputapu, has the right to call on him whenever he feels the need,” Sua informed him. “His people throw some kava root in the sea, and first the remoras—Sekatoa’s matapule assistants—come, and then Maatu’s people send the remoras away with a message; then a small shark comes, perhaps one of your kuwai, and they give him a message, too, and send him away; then a bigger shark comes; and so it goes until at last Sekatoa himself arrives and asks what Maatu desires.”

  “But Niuatoputapu is a Tongan island, and there aren’t even any Tongans here, let alone any chiefs by the name of Maatu, just you sorry Samoans, e hoa ma, my friends.”

  However, as he worked on his taiaha, from the corner of his eye Wiki could see Sua rocking back and forth as he wound himself up into a yarn-spinning frame of mind, and resignedly realized that yet another tale of Sekatoa was on the way.