‘No High Chief ever enters his own or any other house by the back door; and no inferior may ever pass behind a High Chief when he is seated, even to serve him at table. In the islands there are many such customs as these. The people think them right and proper, so continue to observe them willingly.’
To one side of the bure there was an oval swimming pool, at the far end were shaded swing hammocks, basket chairs, tables and a small bar; while round about were hibiscus bushes, cannas and pepper plants in blossom, and frangipani trees, the creamy flowers of which filled the air with a heady scent.
As they came round to the front of the bure, Gregory found himself looking on one of the most beautiful panoramas he had ever seen, A spacious garden sloped away down the hillside. In the forefront there were carefully-tended beds of many-coloured flowers. Along the side slopes and lower down, so as not to obstruct the view, were splendid specimen trees: mangoes, breadfruit, magnolias and giant figs that bore only miniature fruit.
Below, shaped like a sickle moon, spread the long sweep of the bay. In the centre, looking so clear in the early-morning light that one might have thrown a stone on to a roof-top, nestled Revika, the island’s capital. The town consisted of no more than a few brick buildings and some half-hundred wooden ones; but on either side of it along the coast, half-hidden in groves of palm trees, there peeped out the thatched roofs of scores of bures. The beach on the extremity of the left horn of the bay was hidden by massed trees of vivid green, the right horn was a mile-long stretch of gleaming white sand.
In the little harbour of Revika there were several schooners and a number of small motor boats, the phut-phut-phutting of one of which could be heard clearly as it made its way towards the harbour mouth. Further out, half a dozen canoes, with outriggers and great red triangular sails, were already on their way to the fishing grounds, each leaving a rippling wake on the calm surface of the water inside the lagoon. Two miles out the waves broke in a thin, creaming line on the coral reef that protected it. Beyond the reef were two small islands that seemed to float between the deep blue of the sea and the paler blue of the cloudless sky. Both of them were thick with palms that, in the distance, looked like clusters of yellow-green feathers. Not far from the shore a patch of the mirror-like water suddenly danced and sparkled in the sunlight—it was a shoal of flying fish breaking surface.
‘What a wonderful situation you have here,’ Gregory remarked. ‘It must be one of the most beautiful views in the South Seas.’
‘It is,’ agreed James. ‘But down by the coast the scenery is not quite up to that in several other islands. The loveliest of all, I think, is Western Samoa. There is a stretch of forty miles there, where the road winds along within sight of the sea and for long distances only a hundred yards or so from it. You could not describe it as a built-up area, but for its whole length, instead of scattered villages, there are, at short intervals, houses with pretty gardens. They are mostly native bures, of course, and unlike those in Fiji or here, their thatched roofs are supported by poles between which are reed curtains that can be let down in times of bad weather. Normally the colourfully-clad people who live in them can be seen going about their daily tasks, and the interiors are always neat and clean. Against a back-drop of palms and jungle, which slope up to the heights behind them, they are enchanting.’
‘How about Eastern Samoa?’
‘That, too, is lovely; but in a different way. The coast road is a corniche, in most places a hundred or so feet above the sea and dropping steeply to a succession of charming little bays. The villages along it are few and far between, and consist mostly of tin-roofed, open-sided, brick bungalows, built by the generous Americans after a great number of the bures of the unfortunate natives were destroyed some years ago by a terrible hurricane.
‘The principal attraction there is Pago-Pago. Hundreds of years ago its site was occupied by an enormous volcano. One day it erupted with such terrific violence that it broke down a short strip of the coast, so that the ocean rushed in and turned the crater into a vast, almost land-locked lagoon. The little town of Pago-Pago stands along an inner arm of it. Not many years ago, on the extremity of the arm, overlooking the bay, the Americans put up their great Intercontinental Hotel, and the architect they employed did a splendid job for them. Instead of the usual big, oblong box, all the buildings, including about a score of separate bures, are copied from the local native design, and have roofs the shape of broad, upside-down boats. The hotel, too, has everything, and is one of the finest in the Pacific.
‘The Americans also erected a cable railway which passes over the town and across the water up to their Radio Station at the top of Rainmaker Mountain, which dominates the country for miles round. I went up it, and was scared out of my wits. We were warned that the car stops and changes gear about a hundred feet from the top; but not that it would wobble violently, then suddenly run backward for about a dozen yards. I felt certain it was about to crash and, as the Rainmaker is over seventeen hundred feet high, I would have been smashed to atoms at the bottom. But my scare proved worth it, as the view from the top is fabulous.’
Gregory sighed. ‘Why are we Europeans such fools as to spend our lives swarming like ants in hideous cities, when we might live in this South Sea paradise?’
With a smile James replied, ‘If only a tenth of you settled in the South Pacific in no time things here would be just as bad. Even without that, our golden age of happy isolation is already over. Increases in population, science and modernisation are putting an end to true leisure and simple pleasures. We, too, are doomed to become the victims of the rat race.’
‘Yet you plan to foster that unhappy state of things. That is, if we get the Spanish gold. To mechanise your native industries, build a canning factory and so on, is bound to do so.’
‘The gold! Yes. My mind has been so occupied with the results of my folly in Noumea that I had almost forgotten about it. I fear, though, that by now either Lacost will have made off with it illegally or de Carvalho will have divers at work salvaging it. In any case, the latter holds the licence, so it will not be easy to contest his rights. I shall, though. The Maria Amalia went down long before the French became the masters here. In the name of my ancestors who ruled here then, I mean to claim it.
‘But you are right, of course, that the true welfare of my people and my plans for them conflict. Yet how can I stand by and watch them being exploited by the rising tide of Indians? Modernisation will come here anyhow. At least it will be better for them if I can succeed in controlling it on their behalf.’
As they turned to enter the bure, an old, half-blind man who appeared to be dozing on the doorstep suddenly saw them, stood up and went down on his knees. James spoke to him and said to Gregory, ‘This is Sukuna. He has been our doorkeeper for longer than any of us can remember. In his youth people were still eating human flesh. I will send him for Kalabo, my head servant. We will have a bath while he has breakfast prepared for us.’
‘By that I suppose you mean a shower?’
‘You hate them, don’t you?’ James chuckled. ‘But your luck is in. You seem to have forgotten that I was educated in the British manner. I, too, love to relax and lie soaking; so, when I succeeded my father I had three baths installed here.’
The interior of the bure was very similar to that of Manon’s, except that it was much larger, the patterned designs of woven bamboo on the walls more intricate, and that on the great tapa-covered beams were imposed whole rows of precious whale teeth and the white cowrie shells that, by tradition, only Royalty is permitted to use for decoration.
Kalabo came in and made smiling obeisance. He was a huge man, as tall as and much broader than his Ratu, with a pouffe of black hair that must have measured close on eighteen inches from side to side. James spoke rapidly to him in the sing-song native tongue, then told Gregory:
‘I have ordered him to send four of my men to guard the Frenchmen and give them food. It will be quite unnecessary to remove them from the
hangar, at least until our next weekly aircraft is due in, and that will not be for the next three days. Kalabo will also send his aunt down to the telegraph office. She is the mother of the operator there and, should a message come in from General Ribaud, we shall know its contents long before it reaches the Resident.’
Gregory did not even think of questioning the decision to leave the two Frenchmen in the hangar. Since they had arrived at the bure, James seemed to have become a different person. Although he was still in the travel-stained Western suit that he had worn for over two months, he had acquired an air of immense dignity. Even his movements and the tone of his voice had altered. About him there was an aura of complete self-assurance and unchallengeable authority.
In a bedroom bure to which another servant shortly afterwards conducted Gregory he found laid out for him a set of native clothes, and, in the adjacent bathroom, a safety razor, clean hairbrushes and everything else he might need. He lay for a long time in a tepid bath, then dressed. The colourful shirt, evidently one of James’, was much too large for him; but the sulu, a form of kilt, was easily adjustable.
Having had to make do for many weeks on monotonous prison fare, they tremendously enjoyed an enormous breakfast. While they ate, James told Gregory that, at least concerning the gold, their luck was in. Contrary to expectations, despite their having been out of action for two months, no attempt to salvage it had so far been made. Through his servants James had obtained the following information.
The professional diver Hamie Baker, who had been engaged by Gregory in Fiji, had arrived with his salvaging apparatus in the second week of February. He had put up at the Bonne Cuisine, a guest house down on the harbour, and had remained there ever since, evidently awaiting instructions. Another professional diver, named Philip Macauta, bringing salvaging equipment from Tahiti, had arrived shortly after Baker and had also taken a room at the Bonne Cuisine.
But his employer, Lacost, and the other Colons had not put in an appearance until nine days previously. They had turned up in a battered seagoing launch named the Pigalle and, according to the island grapevine, one of them had let it out, during a drunken evening ashore, that Lacost and one of the others had only recently completed a two-month prison sentence after having been caught smuggling drugs from Mexico into Tahiti. Soon after their arrival they had taken their launch and equipment out to the sunken Maria Amalia; but, having no licence, they had been warned off by the Resident and his Sergeant of gendarmes.
Lacost had defied them and refused to leave the site. The following day, de Carvalho had arrived in the Boa Viagem. He had brought no salvaging equipment with him, but had gone out to view the wreck. Both parties had then returned to harbour and two days ago both had sailed, it was thought, for Fiji.
In the light of the scanty information available, to find an explanation for these movements was not possible. It might be that Lacost, having sent his diver Macauta down to the wreck, had found there was no quantity of gold in her, after all. But if so why had he defied the Resident’s order to leave the site, yet left after de Carvalho had gone out to it? Again, why, although the Colons had sailed from Revika in the Pigalle two days before, had they left Macauta and their salvaging equipment behind? And, biggest question of all, why should Lacost and de Carvalho have lingered in Revika for several days, then sailed on the same day for Fiji?
Only one thing was clear. If there was treasure in the wreck, it was still there; so, if James chose to ignore the fact that he had no licence, his rivals had left him a free field to send divers down right away to get it, provided Ribaud took no steps against him in the next few days. And James had made it clear that, regarding himself as the rightful owner of the gold, that was what he meant to do.
When they had finished their meal Gregory said, ‘First things first. For the time being we must forget the gold and try to stave off Ribaud. While I was in my bath I did some pretty hard thinking, and if you’ll give me a pencil and paper I’ll draft a telegram I want to get off to him.’
From a fine old walnut Dutch bureau James produced Gregory’s requirements. After writing for a few minutes Gregory picked up the paper and read out:
‘Your two compatriots deprived of clothes by natives here. Suggest you send replacements by air. Am arranging agreed transfer of money to Credit Lyonnaise 44 Boulevard St. Germain. Do you wish Charles Lorraine be informed of transaction? Expect reply by 1800 hours. Dantés.’
James gave him a puzzled look. ‘I can’t make head nor tail of it.’
‘I’ll interpret,’ Gregory grinned. The two compatriots are, of course, Fournier and Joubert. You, anyhow, are a native of this island and that’s good enough. Ribaud is an old Secret Service hand and so am I. When such types get hold of an enemy, and have no means of handing him over to someone else who will keep him for a while from becoming dangerous, it is common practice to take away his clothes and shoes. Then, even if he does break out from wherever he had been locked up, it is difficult for him get very far or persuade anyone he happens to meet that he is not a lunatic. Ribaud knows that one as well as I do, so he’ll jump to it that you and I debagged his two boys and left them to cool their heels in the nude.
‘Having done that, it’s obvious that at any time it suited us we could give them back their clothes. So “replacements” does not mean other sets of uniforms for them, but that Ribaud should send us our belongings. He’ll get that one, too.
‘Then there is the transfer of money. As I told you, I did not actually blackmail Ribaud; but when he had agreed to arrange our escape I offered to send quite a substantial sum of money to his bank in Paris. He accepted and gave me the address of his bank. It would have been round about four thousand pounds, but I felt that he would have earned it if he rigged matters with his police and had flown us to Tujoa.
‘As things turned out, we’ve got to hand it to him as a conscientious servant of the French Republic. To make certain that we did not blow the gaff about the Russians and their rockets on Yuloga he attempted to send us back there, and leave it to them to see to it that we had no chance to talk. And he knew that little gesture would cost him the four thousand he might have pocketed if he had really connived at our escape.
‘But now I am blackmailing him—good, hard and proper. Only Fournier and Joubert believe us to be criminals and knew that he meant to give us back to the Russians. The other boys, all the police, obviously believed that they had been given the job of ensuring that we should escape because we were members of the Deuxième Bureau who had got ourselves into a fix.
‘If there is an investigation and they are questioned, having no axe to grind they will tell what they believe to be the truth—and say that they were simply obeying the General’s orders.
‘If I send four thousand pounds to Ribaud’s bank in Paris nobody will be able to contest the fact that he has received a large sum of money from me. And in certain circumstances somebody might require him to explain why I did so. In this telegram I have asked my old pal if he wishes Charles Lorraine to be informed of this transaction. Charles, of course, is General de Gaulle. You will remember that he took the double cross of Lorraine as his symbol for the Free French. Ribaud will pick that one up as swiftly as I would drop a red-hot coal.
‘So, you see, he will be faced with a choice. Either he lets sleeping dogs lie and refrains for good from any attempt to have you and me arrested, or he will be called on to explain why he instructed his police to arrange our escape, and accepted a big bribe for doing so. I’ve given him until six o’clock this evening to make up his mind. Now, whether he gives in or, more maddened than ever by my threat, decides to go all out to get us, lies in the lap of the gods.’
13
Enter the White Witch
‘He must give in; he must!’ James cried, as Gregory sat back. ‘He’ll be ruined if he doesn’t. But why are you signing the telegram “Dantés”?’
‘Oh, that’s because I can’t use my own name. You and I have become notorious in Noumea; so, if
I did, everyone there through whose hands the message passed would know that we are in Tujoa. Then, like it or not, Ribaud would be forced to do his utmost to recapture us. Dantés was the hero of Dumas Père’s famous novel The Count of Monte Cristo. He was imprisoned on an island, in the Château d’If, and his getting away from it is the best-known escape story in all French literature. The name is by no means an uncommon one, so it won’t ring a bell with anyone on Ribaud’s staff, but it will with him.’
The young Ratu’s eyes showed schoolboy hero-worship. ‘What a man you are!’ he exclaimed after a moment. ‘No wonder you succeeded in fooling Himmler and the Gestapo all through the war. This is absolutely brilliant. The telegram gives nothing away to anyone who may read it. But to Ribaud its meaning will be as clear as crystal. He’s got to let me go or be dismissed with ignominy as a corrupt official.’
‘I hope you are right,’ Gregory replied soberly. ‘But we can’t count our chickens yet. Ribaud is both a tough egg and an honest man. He may decide to face the music. You see, he just might get himself in the clear if he told the truth and brought Fournier and Joubert to witness that all the time his real intentions had been to return us to the Russians.’
‘Even then it would be difficult to laugh off that big bribe.’
‘Yes. It’s that on which I am counting. So I want to send another telegram, when we send this, to my bank in New York. It will be an instruction, verified by a code word that only they and I know, to pay that four thousand into Ribaud’s bank with the least possible delay, and to inform him by highest priority cable that it has been paid in.’
‘Then you really mean to send the money?’
‘Certainly. When he learns that it has actually been paid in that may prove the deciding factor.’
The White Witch of the South Seas Page 23
