Shark Island

by Joan Druett

“Did you know of the time that Samoan ghosts stole the mountain from Niuafo’ou?”

  Wiki had been to the Tongan island of Niuafo’ou. He stood up and sighted down the taiaha, which was now unmistakably a weapon—and a viciously beautiful weapon, too. The rau, the flat striking blade, had been hardened by smoking and heating to the smoothness of a hatchet, and because he and George practiced every evening, the shaft was highly polished by the constant rubbing of his hands. The nightly contest had become so lively that George used an ordinary ship’s cutlass instead of risking his dress sword, and the whole crew watched with great excitement. Undoubtedly, bets were laid. Wiki’s skill with the taiaha had improved beyond bounds, but George’s swordsmanship had come along amazingly, too, and so they were very evenly matched.

  Wiki sat down again, and said, “There is no mountain on Niuafo’ou.”

  “That’s because the Samoan ghosts stole it,” Sua informed him.

  “Ah, why didn’t I guess?” said Wiki sardonically. “Why did they want it?”

  “They wanted to take it to Samoa, but Sekatoa saw what they were doing. It was at night, of course, as Samoan ghosts cannot stand the light of the sun, so he decided to trick them. First he sent his matapules in the form of roosters, to crow as if it were dawn.”

  “So the ghosts took fright and dropped it?”

  “Not yet. They simply pulled faster, telling each other, ‘Hurry, it is almost morning.’ So Sekatoa decided to handle the problem himself. He swam up to the ghosts and showed them his red arse—mata tuungaiku in Tongan—and they were so alarmed that they dropped the mountain, and it became the island of Tafahi.”

  “The ghosts thought his red arse was the sun?”

  “Aye.”

  Wiki said firmly, “I did not see any red arse. And, furthermore, it is time you two relieved the lookouts aloft, e hoa ma.”

  After they had gone, he concentrated on the teardrop-shaped end of his taiaha. He had carved it into a stylized head with slanted eyes and a long protruding tongue, which he was now engraving with elaborate curves and whorls. A sennit collar had been twisted about its neck, and into this Wiki had braided the feathers of the bird that had led him to the staff, along with long tufts of his own black hair. This was designed to distract the enemy by being flicked across his eyes.

  “Ko te rakau na Hapai,” Wiki sang as he wielded the tip of his knife:

  Ko te rakau na Toa

  Ko te rakau na Tu, Tu-ka-riti, Tu-ka-nguha.

  This is the weapon of the Ancestors,

  This is the weapon of the Warriors,

  This is the weapon of Tu, furious Tu, raging Tu.

  Tu was Tumatauenga, the ancestor-guardian of war. The verse was not meant to be a song, not really—it was supposed to be a chant, a karakia, but Wiki sang it because he was feeling so good about the way his taiaha was progressing. Secretly he was not even sure he used the right words—there were karakia to be used by children, others for laymen like himself, and still more reserved to elders and tohunga, priests. Perhaps, he thought, he was being unwittingly presumptuous, but still the words sounded right in his head, and he felt happy about them.

  The sun reached its zenith in the sky as the song trailed into silence. It was hot, the sun sparkling fiercely on the rippling surface of the water. Aloft, the two Samoans were silent. A plume of smoke wafted up to the paling sky from the galley chimney, and a redolent steam was drifting out of the door. Wiki went inside and reached over the stove to stow the taiaha back on its hooks until it was time for his match with Rochester that evening. Then he lifted the lid of one of the two great caldrons to peer at the bubbling contents. “Ka pai,” he said to Festin. “Oligen, yo. It smells good.”

  “Bloody good,” agreed the cook.

  Over the past ten days Festin had come along by leaps and bounds, and not just in the quality of his cooking. He still had trouble forming sentences, but obviously the bang he had taken on his head was mending. Disconcertingly, the English words he adopted most easily were profane—learned from Forsythe, whom Festin greatly admired—but he also seemed fascinated with te reo, Wiki’s native language, and had readily picked up a few phrases.

  In turn, Wiki was beginning to get a grasp of Festin’s strange dialect—something that, oddly, was helped along by memories of the months in New Hampshire when he and George played truant to sit about the campfires of the Indians they were supposed to be converting, because a number of the words the strange little man used were very close to Abnaki—such as the word for greeting, kway. The rest seemed to be based on some ancient French provincial dialect, so Wiki theorized that he had originally hailed from one of the remote maritime communities of Nova Scotia or Labrador. How Festin had got to Rio de Janeiro—or, indeed, how he had been hit on the head—was still a mystery, however.

  Otherwise, all Wiki had learned was that Festin loathed everyone on the Annawan, Jack Winter in particular, and was absolutely delighted to be on board the Swallow. The only place he would have preferred to be was in the camp the cutter’s men had set up in the cove on the other side of the headland. “Forsythe bloody good skipper,” he said, nodding toward the Annawan, where the southerner could be heard roaring at someone who had got in his way. Though Forsythe would have shot him out of hand if he’d even begun to guess it, Robert Festin had fallen madly in love with the big Virginian.

  “What about Captain Reed?” Wiki asked, amused.

  “Bad skipper, drunk-all-the-time skipper,” was the reply. As Festin went on to convey, whoever had murdered Reed should be heartily congratulated.

  “If that’s the case,” Wiki said dryly, “it’s a pity you didn’t see the murderer from the galley so you could pat him on the back yourself.”

  “Hein?” said Festin. “Galley, not the bloody pantry, galley yes, pantry no.” Then he spat over the rail, which—as Wiki knew very well, indeed—was his way of telling him that the conversation was over. Wiki loped to the foremast, and clambered aloft to have a look at what was happening on the Annawan and the beach.

  Over the past days the scene had greatly changed. The raft had been built, complete with heaving post, blocks, belaying points, and a simple capstan, and had been towed around the headland. From where Wiki perched in the topgallant crosstrees, he could see the Annawan men anchoring her up to the schooner’s larboard side. Above their laboring forms, the Annawan was floating high. She’d been completely discharged all the way from the salt in the holds to the sea chests in the forecastle—though not, unfortunately, with any sign of Reed’s bullion. The freshwater tank had been pumped out, and a framework had been set up in the hold so that the loose copper dross ballast could be easily shoveled from one side to the other, and a gang was now at work on that.

  According to what Rochester had told him at breakfast, this early afternoon they would begin to heave the schooner down, and there was every sign for optimism that the job would go well. Perhaps the repair would be so simple and straightforward that the schooner would be floating and seaworthy again within four more days—which, for Wiki, was a matter for concern as well as celebration. While it would be a great relief to sail off on the Swallow, he was no wiser about what had happened to the silver, or any closer to the solution to the murders. Confined to the brig, he had not had a chance to investigate, he thought moodily.

  Looking on the bright side, the parrot was very much better. Stoker had been delighted when George had carried the birdcage on board, announcing as he popped the parrot inside that recovery was now a virtual certainty. Now the cage hung from a hook in a corner of the saloon, its occupant almost perky, turning its head from side to side as if it were trying to see out of its poor blind eyes. As soon as the bird was well enough Wiki intended to give it to Annabelle so she could release it herself, and rid herself of superstitious fears. Even though it was blind, poor creature, surely it would manage to survive in the island scrub—and Stoker, that scion of higlers and henwives, was confident that with time the scales would fall off its eyes and it wou
ld see as well as ever.

  Then the sleepy progress of Wiki’s thoughts was rudely interrupted by a yell from Sua, who was poised precariously in the highest truck of the mainmast rigging, while the entire mast trembled under his weight as he waved. He was pointing toward the open sea, while Tana, farther down the same mast, was gesturing at the cutter, which was hurrying to the brig.

  A sail could just be discerned beyond the big headland that barred the way to the open sea. Despite the distance Wiki recognized the craft instantly—the little 96-ton schooner Flying Fish, the smallest vessel of the United States Exploring Expedition. George should be pleased, he thought, because he had a lot in common with Samuel Knox, the commander of the Flying Fish. The son and grandson of Boston pilots and a ten-year navy veteran who had seen service in both the Pacific and the Mediterranean, Knox, like George, had been given the command even though he was just a passed midshipman.

  The schooner hove to and fired a gun for a pilot. Simultaneously, the cutter arrived at the side of the brig, Forsythe, who was steering, looking extremely irritated at being sent away when the excitement of finally heaving the schooner over onto her good side was almost nigh. Rochester, he informed Wiki, was busy overseeing a cable rove from the masthead, and sent a message begging Wiki to do him the favor of going out in the cutter to greet Knox in his place, while one of the cutter’s men looked after the Swallow.

  The New Bedforder came on board, and after giving him some advice and a few instructions, Wiki took a flying leap into the boat—in the nick of time, for Forsythe, being in a temper and in a hurry, had got under way already. Not unexpectedly, in view of this, the run out to the Flying Fish was an exciting one. Beneath their keel multicolored outcrops of coral fled away at a perilous rate, and the cutter leaned far over under a full press of sail. Then they came round the headland and the Flying Fish lay directly ahead.

  Wiki studied her with interest as they raced toward her. About seventy feet long, as lean and low as a greyhound and with an abundance of fore-and-aft sail, the Flying Fish was a pretty sight. In her earlier life she had been a dashing New York pilot boat, and she looked every inch the part. She was flying a number of signals as well as the Stars and Stripes.

  “What the hell is he trying to tell us?” Forsythe asked.

  “I haven’t a notion,” said Wiki. “Could it be some kind of emergency?”

  “Beats me,” said Forsythe as they sheered up to the vessel. “It ain’t like Knox to carry on like this.”

  The mystery was solved when Lawrence J. Smith, the pompous, self-righteous, prating little lieutenant who had made both their lives miserable when he was second-in-command of the Swallow, hove up to the rail with a complacent smirk.

  Forsythe muttered, “What the devil have we done to deserve this?”

  Wiki grimaced but said nothing. There was no hope of mistaken identification—not only was the Flying Fish just a fraction higher out of the water than the cutter, but the little schooner had hardly any bulwarks.

  Forsythe said with a pleasant smile, “What the bloody hell are you doing here, Lieutenant?”

  “You may call me ‘captain,’” Smith said smugly. “And welcome aboard my ship.”

  “What happened to Sam Knox?”

  “Captain Wilkes transferred him to the Porpoise and gave me the Flying Fish.”

  “I wonder what sin that poor bastard Knox has committed,” said Forsythe sotto voce, and stepped up and over the side, Wiki behind him. A boatswain piped in proper navy style, but, while Forsythe returned the salutes of the two seamen standing at attention, he didn’t bother to do Smith the same favor.

  “Well, sir?” he said intimidatingly.

  “I was given the mission of bringing the Flying Fish here,” Smith sniffed. “On account of Wiki Coffin’s failure to report back in good season.”

  Recognizing Wiki’s presence, he enunciated, “Wiremu,” and nodded. Wiki, blank-faced, nodded back. He’d almost forgotten Lieutenant Smith’s irritating insistence on calling him by the Maori version of his English name as if he had some proprietary right to do so.

  “Where is Passed Midshipman Rochester?” the self-important little man demanded now. “Alive? Well?”

  “Captain Rochester is alive, well, and busy,” said Wiki, emphasizing the first word only a little.

  “That he’d suffered a severe accident was the very least we expected when so much time passed by with no sign of him,” Smith sniffed. It sounded, Wiki thought, as if he’d been hoping for the worst.

  Forsythe interrupted, “You got some kind of emergency on board?” He jerked his chin at the assortment of flags.

  “Just infamous bad luck, sir!”

  Knowing Lieutenant Smith the way they both did, they did not feel any great surprise to learn that his bad luck was due to his own mismanagement. Instead of following the course that Rochester had laid down before he’d left the fleet, Smith had called onto the coast to rewater, and there lost two men—one of them the ship’s cook—from fever; then four more when they’d run away; then another when he’d fallen overboard and drowned.

  Thus, under his guiding hand, the schooner’s original complement of fifteen had been reduced to eight. Not only was it an emergency, according to Lawrence J. Smith, but it had greatly retarded the schooner’s progress. Wiki wondered why he hadn’t returned to the fleet to report this dismal sequence of events, but then realized that Smith was reluctant to confess his failure to Captain Wilkes.

  The recital finally over, Smith demanded that two of the cutter’s crew come on board to help him get the schooner into the cove. Forsythe flatly refused, but—without consulting Wiki first—offered Wiki’s services to take the helm while he, in the cutter, led the way. Then he sailed with his characteristic dash and flair through the myriad obstacles, with no consideration whatsoever for whatever difficulties Wiki might be experiencing. Luckily the Flying Fish was swift and agile, particularly when close to the wind.

  Coming around the headland, Wiki found a view that was very different from when he had left the cove. Now the great bulk of the Annawan’s hull rose high, so she looked very much like a half-beached whale—the Annawan, he realized with a surge of triumph, had been successfully hove down! A flimsy platform of planks and barrels was being floated out beneath the exposed side of the hove-down schooner, and by the time the anchor of the Flying Fish was dropped, a line was being thrown over the rail with the carpenter dangling from the end to examine the damage.

  Unsurprisingly, George Rochester came on board the Flying Fish in a highly celebratory mood. Over she’d gone without the slightest hitch, he blithely reported after the briefest of salutes—a steady haul on the cable and over she’d rolled, as gentle as a little lamb. And, he went on, she would certainly have overset without the securely anchored raft. The holes in her hull were high and dry, and perfectly accessible. The carpenter confirmed Wiki’s feeling that only one strake needed to be replaced, as the others could be easily mended in situ.

  Lawrence J. Smith was less than impressed. Indeed, he was not even particularly interested, instead taking great pleasure in informing Rochester that Captain Wilkes could well find his unaccountable delay quite unforgivable. Told about the murder of Captain Reed, he expressed the opinion that the authorities in Rio should have handled the case. Notified that Passed Midshipman Kingman had been knifed as well, he became even more contemptuous, declaring that the failure to promptly report the sad loss of an officer—a man of importance to the expedition!—was a particularly grave lapse on Rochester’s part.

  Rochester listened attentively, blandly, and in silence. Then, having invited Smith to supper on the Swallow, he quit the Flying Fish, taking the much relieved Wiki with him. “And I hope Festin can rise to the challenge,” he said as the boat pulled away. “Much as I’d love to poison the pompous little prawn, it wouldn’t look good on my record.”

  Thirty-one

  Next morning when Wiki came out of his stateroom, Rochester was sitting at the sa
loon table already, even though it was not yet dawn. Pouring a mug of coffee, Wiki said, “How did it go?” He had been on watch at suppertime, so had not been one of the party.

  “The meal was delicious—Festin excelled himself!”

  “I know,” said Wiki. He’d watched with interest as Festin made a thick pie crust out of flour, shortening, and the gravy from the meat he’d been stewing. Then, after filling the crust with chunks of tender meat and baking it, the cook had cut it into squares which he steamed before serving so that the pastry puffed up. He had given a square to Wiki to taste, and very good it had been, too.

  After it had slid delectably down to his stomach, Wiki had hung around, partly in the hope of another sample, and also because the squat little man was having one of his lucid spells. It had proved worthwhile: not only had he enjoyed a second helping, but they’d had quite an interesting little conversation.

  It had started off in unpromising style, with Festin chanting, “Galley, pantry, galley, pantry, galley, pantry,” as if it were some weird nursery rhyme; but then the cook had demanded, “What te reo Maori call ‘pantry’?”

  Wiki had hesitated, wondering why he’d asked. Then he’d said, “The word for ‘pantry’ is pataka, only it’s not a pantry the way you pakeha know it. It’s a storehouse for provisions.” Using a mixture of English, Maori, and Festin’s dialect, he’d tried to portray in words the elaborately carved pataka that were built on stilts to preserve their contents from rats, thieves, and damp, and which ranged in size from small boxes to storehouses many feet in length, according to the wealth of the village.

  Festin had seemed to find this fascinating, listening raptly with his liquid brown gaze fixed on Wiki’s face, and had said with great satisfaction when Wiki had run to a stop, “That is it exactly.”

  “What?”

  “Exactly pantry, aye.”

  “What do you mean?” Wiki had said, greatly puzzled, but it had been the end of the conversation. Festin had spat over the rail and taken himself back to his stove.