Shark Island

by Joan Druett

  No wonder, he thought grimly, that she had been breathless when she’d come to the rail when he had arrived at the side of the schooner—or that her hands had been covered in blood. She had heaved the corpse over by gripping the edge of the mat, which was why they had found it alongside the body.

  Forsythe scowled deeply, and then he said, “But after she left the cabin I heard the old man’s voice shouting—”

  He silenced. Annabelle, her expression utterly panic-stricken, dropped the cage over the rail—and as it fell the door swung open and the parrot tumbled out with a squawk and a few flying feathers.

  The bird plunged like a stone, recovered an inch from the surface, and then soared up, screaming. It screamed, “Goddamned bitch!” in such a human voice that Wiki flinched. Then it was off, flapping across the beach and into the scrub, croaking obscenities as it went.

  “Jesus Christ!” shouted Forsythe. “That’s the sound I heard! It wasn’t the old man—it was the bird! That’s why she covered the cage, to stop it talking again!” Then he yelled, “Look out!”

  Annabelle had hauled two pistols out of the holsters in her pockets. “Jesus,” cried Forsythe. He swung his rifle off his shoulder. Wiki shouted, “No!” and threw himself to the deck, diving toward Annabelle as one gun fired. He felt the wind of a pistol ball as it whined across his back. Then another shot crashed out, and another. He frantically crawled, trying to get to Annabelle to save her without being killed himself. Abruptly the shooting stopped.

  “Jesus,” said Forsythe as Wiki scrambled to his feet. Most unusually, the Virginian’s voice was shaking. “My God, she was determined to put you away—she could have got all of us if she wasn’t so determined to get you first. Are you hurt?”

  Wiki was unscathed. Instead, it was Annabelle who was slumped to the planks. Forsythe might have been uncharacteristically slow, but his aim had been as unerring as ever. Wiki desperately wanted to run to her, but was shaking too much to move.

  Forsythe demanded angrily, “Did she really think she’d get away with it?”

  The Annawan seamen were bursting out onto the beach. A boat was pushed out and then Joel Hammond ran across the raft and up onto deck. With an incoherent cry he ran over to Annabelle’s body, and scooped her up to his chest. “Oh no,” he said, rocking her body in his arms. “No.” And Wiki thought, yes, Annabelle had believed with good reason that she’d get away with killing the three of them, because this man would have covered it up—just as her cousin had tried to cover up her murder of Ezekiel Reed.

  Forsythe said aggressively to Hammond, “How long have you been making a cuckold of old man Reed—while all the time you and his woman was pretendin’ that you hated each other, huh? But you wanted his fortune as well as his wife—so you planned to kill him off! So she would inherit his fortune and you could share it!”

  “Fortune?” Hammond let out a harsh travesty of a laugh. “What goddamned fortune? Annabelle wasn’t his goddamned heir! When he died she got nothing!”

  “So you were going to steal his bullion,” Forsythe exclaimed, enlightened. “That’s why you were prating on about that mythical Lima silver! You was going to collect the hundred thousand dollars in bullion, take it on board, and then pretend it was treasure trove so that Reed’s real heirs couldn’t claim it!”

  Joel Hammond said sullenly, “That’s a very neat theory. The problem is that once her cousin Green was dead we didn’t have any goddamned idea of where it was buried. He was the one who hid the silver, and he showed Ezekiel Reed where he put it, but no one else knew.”

  When you put Annabelle to rest in the burial ground up there, maybe you will notice the lid of a crypt has sunk a bit and find you have a good idea, after all, of where it was buried, Wiki coldly meditated, but didn’t open his mouth. Instead of saying anything he thought of all the people who had died because of that silver bullion.

  “Wa-al, ain’t that a pity—and after we was kind enough to fix your schooner, too,” drawled Forsythe, sounding a lot more like his cynical self. “It must’ve been a nasty moment when you holed the poor old box—but then we come along with the Swallow. What would you have done if we hadn’t been so handy with our carpentry, huh? My God, I think Hudson of the Peacock was right, after all—you was set to seize the Swallow like the goddamned pirates that you are!”

  “Don’t be so sure that it hasn’t happened!” Joel Hammond flashed from where he crouched with Annabelle’s corpse in his arms. “Those bloody sealers are determined to get a ship of their own, and I think they’ll find Rochester an easier target than Nat Palmer!”

  My God, thought Wiki. It was a confirmation of all his misgivings about taking the Annawan crew on board. There might be just eight in the sealing gang—but because Smith had taken six hands and he himself had stayed behind there were only nine Swallow men left. He turned round to Forsythe and said urgently, “George can’t be more than a day’s sail away.”

  He saw Forsythe cast a glance at the sky. The day was growing to a close and the storm was threatening on the horizon, but the southerner nodded and lifted his voice to hail his men. The cutter arrived, and he jumped down into it.

  Wiki looked at Robert Festin, and said, “You’d better come with us.” His life wasn’t worth much if he remained, he thought. Obviously, Festin agreed. The cutter danced on the water a long way below, but without a word he took a deep breath and jumped.

  Within an hour they were through the shoals and reefs. The forbidding silhouette of the fort was on the sternward horizon, along with the reassuring flicker of the U.S. flag that they’d left behind, and then they were out in the open sea. As dusk fell Forsythe moved, breaking a long, long silence.

  “Goddamn it,” he said. “She was such a good-looking woman.”

  “Aye,” said Wiki. His cheeks were wet.

  “So they plan to seize the Swallow, eh?” Forsythe said broodingly. “Wa’al, we’ll soon put a stop to that,” he said, and the cutter raced on through the night toward the threatening storm.

  Epilogue

  Five days later the cutter finally raised the expedition fleet. They had been the longest and worst days of the whole of Wiki’s seafaring career. The northeast wind had blown hard, and the seas had risen high while the rain streamed down. With nine of them in the thirty-foot boat, life had been cramped in the extreme, with just about as much daily exercise as taken by a chicken in a shell. The cutter had jinked and bounced so unevenly that they had been forced to relieve themselves in a bucket and then tip it over the side, and with the sternward half of the boat open to the elements all the time they were under sail, not only had the men been constantly drenched, but the provisions were soaking wet, as well.

  There were two berths tucked under the decking that had been built up to the foremost of the two masts, but after Wiki had tried one out he had known exactly why Forsythe and Kingman had come on board the brig Swallow each night of the passage out to Shark Island. They were six feet long and just twenty inches at the widest part, but the worst was the utter lack of headroom; because the decking was so close to his nose he was forced to lie on his back, as there was not enough space to accommodate his shoulders if he lay on his side. After half an hour of jouncing painfully on his backbone, Wiki had gladly given the berth over to one of the others, and wished him better luck with snatching a little slumber.

  Worst of all was his state of mind, swinging from ominous thoughts of the Swallow at the mercy of the sealers, to the dismal notion that the expedition fleet had finished the charting job and was on the way to Rio, which would mean that they were steering in the wrong direction. However, on the fifth day, that particular fear was put to rest with the sight of towering canvas on the horizon.

  As if the spirits were amusing themselves at the cutter’s men’s expense, the weather was fair, with a steady breeze to fill the sails, and the sea as smooth as any sailor could wish. Being so low in the water, they were almost upon the fleet by the time they spied the Vincennes, so that within minut
es they could count the ships—six of them, six! Wiki could hardly believe it—both the Swallow and the Flying Fish were there!

  Forsythe, characteristically, ordered one of the swivel guns manned, and so the cutter joined the fleet in a thunder of noise and smoke as all the ships returned the rolling salute. The brig Swallow was tucked close to the stern of the flagship Vincennes, as dashing and pretty as if she had never left her post, rising high above the cutter as Forsythe, at the tiller, rounded up to her stern to a chorus of hip-hurrahs. A rope immediately dropped. Wiki jumped, grabbed it, and was hauled up and over the rail by Sua, his brown face broader than ever with his welcoming grin.

  Wiki couldn’t believe that the brig could look so wonderfully natural. George Rochester was there, shaking his hand and hitting him on the shoulder as if he wanted to dislocate his arm, while Midshipman Keith gleefully hovered about. Forsythe arrived over the gangway then, followed by the cutter’s men, with Robert Festin bashfully bringing up the rear. Everyone was shouting deliriously at once, and no one was making sense. After five days spent bouncing about in the cutter, to Wiki the Swallow looked and felt huge—the two masts rose higher than he remembered, the rigging was a loftier web, and the deck was so stable and safe. The sense of reprieve and celebration was overwhelming—and then a horribly familiar voice echoed from the deck of the Vincennes.

  It was Captain Wilkes, a glittering figure on the poop, with his speaking trumpet to his lips, and his first lieutenant and his purser beside him. “Lieutenant Forsythe, at long last I see you—and you, too, Mr. Coffin!” he bawled, and his first lieutenant howled through another trumpet, “Toe the line for inspection!”

  Wiki, with Forsythe and the cutter’s men, shuffled along the line that had been painted on the deck of the Swallow for the random inspections that Captain Wilkes loved to carry out in the name of discipline. As the distant spyglass scanned the parlous state of the cutter’s crew in merciless detail, and the man who wielded it ranted on at length about their horrible appearance, Wiki became acutely aware that he, like his eight companions, stank to high heaven. His clothes, like theirs, were filthy, and had dried in untidy creases. Because of his mother’s heritage Wiki scarcely ever needed to shave, but the rest had grown wild salt-stiffened stubble that stuck out like porcupine quills.

  “And what the hell have you been doing, Mr. Coffin?” Wilkes demanded, turning his attention from the cutter’s men. “Your duty was to report back from your mission without a moment’s delay—and yet I had to send Lieutenant Smith in the Flying Fish to remind you of your obligations! Lieutenant Forsythe—what is your excuse for your late arrival, sir? Both the Swallow and the Flying Fish rejoined us more than forty-eight hours ago! Have you been vacationing? Using the cutter as your personal yacht? Cruising the coast as your fancy commands? Smarten yourselves up, both of you, and report to the Vincennes on the instant!”

  Then, at long last, the speaking trumpet was lowered, the tall, hectoring figure disappeared into the after house on the flagship, and Rochester’s remarkably kindly voice ordered the victims of the verbal assault to stand down. Forsythe, his expression wearily sardonic, took himself off to his stateroom to clean up. The cutter’s men, too, disappeared in the direction of food, coffee, and fresh water, taking Robert Festin with them. Wiki, however, stopped firmly on deck, being too riven with curiosity to contemplate anything else. Rochester was full of questions, but he didn’t pay attention to any of them yet, being too full of urgent queries himself.

  “The sealers,” he demanded. “Where are they?”

  “Gone,” said Midshipman Keith, grinning widely. “Departed, sir, departed.”

  “But where?”

  “Lawrence J. Smith came on board, gathered them up, and took them on board the Vincennes, intent on claiming all the credit,” said George. “I tagged along as a kind of Greek chorus.”

  “So how did Captain Wilkes take the news that they had been to the Antarctic continent already?”

  “Badly, judging by his expression, but he didn’t have a chance to speak for quite a long while—that pompous little prawn belongs on the stage of a lecture theater, not the quarterdeck of a ship. By the time Smith had run to a stop, Wilkes had recovered his composure. He greeted them with remarkably professional courtesy—and then he assigned them all about the fleet.”

  “They’re to join the expedition?” Wiki exclaimed.

  “Exactly,” George returned. “That is what Wilkes, in his wisdom, has decreed. Three of ’em are on the Vincennes, three on the Peacock, and two on the Porpoise—and they have strict orders to share their knowledge of sailing in iceberg-ridden seas with as many of the expedition hands as possible.”

  “My God,” said Wiki. This boded badly for the future, he mused.

  “Appalling thought, ain’t it, considering their record of inciting desertion. All we can do is thank Old Scratch that the Swallow wasn’t considered grand enough to be favored with their presence.”

  Wiki shook his head wonderingly. “And I had such terrible prognostications about them seizing the Swallow. Thank God I was wrong.”

  “Oh, but I am quite certain that you were right,” Rochester assured him.

  “Their insistence on keeping their tool chests with them in the fo’c’sle was particularly ominous,” said Midshipman Keith gravely.

  “Jack Winter had the absolute sauce to reassign poor Stoker to the position of cook, so he could take over the pantry,” said George. “I soon put a stop to that! I didn’t relish that troublemaker being so close to my quarters. I couldn’t have slept at night, knowing he was lurking about the after accommodations.”

  “And they had a nasty habit of muttering together while they looked around the brig,” Constant Keith said darkly.

  “Arrogant lot,” said George, and nodded. “That bo’sun, Folger, is a particularly dangerous-looking cove, and that lad of his, Boyd, has a most suspicious look.”

  “We held particular fears about their actions at night, the Swallow folks in the fo’c’sle being so outnumbered,” contributed Midshipman Keith. “However,” he said smugly, “we foiled ’em, Mr. Coffin, we foiled ’em magnificently. Mind you,” he added, “they made it easy.”

  “And how was that?” said Wiki bemusedly.

  “They sent a deputation to the cabin saying they refused to berth in the same fo’c’sle as godless Indians!”

  Wiki said incredulously, “They objected to living in the same fo’c’sle as Sua and Tana?”

  “Aye. Then Sua and Tana got into a huff and informed me they would rather sleep in the boats in the davits than live in the same quarters as ignorant papalagi,” said George. “Which was followed by a deputation from the Swallow hands declaring that they would refuse duty if Tana and Sua were forced to leave their rightful berths, and a dreadful ruckus commenced.”

  “And you said that made it easy for you?”

  “We took all the Swallow men out of the fo’c’sle and made them look for berths elsewhere, which left the sealers in full possession,” quoth George, his expression complacent.

  “You gave way to the sealers’ demands?” Wiki incredulously demanded.

  “That’s how we forestalled their foul design.”

  Said Midshipman Keith smugly, “It was my plan—though it was our carpenter who did the work. During all the fuss he quietly bolted a cleat on each side of the fo’c’sle door, and fashioned a bar to fit in the cleats. Then we gave the sealers a watch below in the fo’c’sle, seeing as it was now their private room—and barred the door as soon as they was all inside. They made a bit of a racket at first, but when we didn’t pay any attention they soon quieted down.”

  Wiki’s face was creasing up with an incredulous grin. “You imprisoned them—until Lieutenant Smith arrived on board to carry them to Captain Wilkes?”

  “Exactly,” George agreed. “And warned ’em before we let them out that we would tell Captain Wilkes the entire story if they made any complaint.”

  Forsythe arrived back
on deck at that moment, obviously ready to head over to the Vincennes and face the worst, but Wiki was laughing too much to notice. “Well done, Midshipman,” he said, sobering at last. “What made you think of it?”

  “Aha, Mr. Coffin, you taught me yourself, sir, that improvisation is the soul of seamanship.”

  Suggested Reading

  Erskine, Charles. Twenty Years Before the Mast: with the more thrilling scenes and incidents while circumnavigating the globe under the command of the late Admiral Charles Wilkes 1838–1842. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, 1985.

  Philbrick, Nathaniel. Sea of Glory: America’s Voyage of Discovery, the U.S. Exploring Expedition 1838–1842. New York: Viking, 2003.

  Reynolds, William. The Private Journal of William Reynolds: United States Exploring Expedition, 1838–1842. Edited by Nathaniel Philbrick and Thomas Philbrick. New York: Penguin, 2004.

  Reynolds, William. Voyage to the Southern Ocean: The Letters of Lieutenant William Reynolds from the U.S. Exploring Expedition, 1838–1842. Edited by Anne Hoffman Cleaver and E. Jeffrey Stann (and with an excellent introduction and epilogue by Herman J. Viola). Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1988.

  Stanton, William. The Great United States Exploring Expedition of 1838–1842. Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1975.

  Viola, Herman J., and Carolyn Margolis, eds. Magnificent Voyagers: The U.S. Exploring Expedition, 1838–1842. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, 1985.

  Wilkes, Charles. Narrative of the United States Exploring Expedition. 5 vols. 1844. Reprint, Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Gregg Press, 1970.

  About the Author

  Joan Druett, an award-winning nautical nonfiction writer, is the author of In the Wake of Madness: The Murderous Voyage of the Whaleship Sharon. She lives in New Zealand. You can sign up for email updates here.