“In Heaven’s name, who?” I asked.
“Paul’s wife,” he said. “Waa …”
It was an involuntary exclamation and revealed much of this man who had spent a lifetime resisting the easy languor of native ways.
“So you fell in love with this Paul’s wife, whoever he is,” I said.
“Was,” Charlie corrected me. “She’d have taken me, too, if it hadn’t been for what he did.” He gestured again toward the black figure on the beach, whose arms were once more outstretched toward the flames as though in some mystic ritual. “In time, she’d have taken me.”
Charlie picked up the bottle and held it toward the gas lantern, sloshing the amber fluid and watching the play of color. The diffused portion of light through the bottle made a yellow bar on his face. “Ever hear of Paul Rejoc?” he asked.
I extended my glass for a refill. “It seems I’ve heard the name,” I said.
As he poured, Charlie mimicked me. “It seems I’ve heard the name.” He carried it a half tone higher. The glass full, he replaced the bottle on the table and studiously avoided his own glass.
“He was a paianayo,” he said. “A man’s man. And a woman’s man, too. There wasn’t another white man in the whole of the South Pacific knew these waters like he did. He was one of the first blackbirders into New Guinea and New Ireland, on one of his old man’s boats. I seen him take natives off the beach at Nukumanu with the wreck of the Tamana sitting right there in the lagoon, her dead—what was left of ’em—rotting on her decks.
“His head boat boy was an Eromangan who boasted of having eaten a piece of the Rev. John Williams. And no doubt was telling the truth.
“Paul was twenty then and a first mate. He stood six feet six in his peou sandals, with shoulders like a Lingayen ox. His great-grandfather had been a French duke who escaped the revolution. His mother was Irish and Polynesian. He took the best of all of them and made it better.
“He had an Atafu woman then, back in the Union group. She died the following year in a hurricane.
“Remember the stories about the Japs keeping us out of the Marshalls. Hah!” Charlie snorted and brought out a crumpled red bandana, into which he bugled noisily. “Hell,” he said, replacing the bandana, “Paul Rejoc spent a year on Jeluit livin’ like a native with a native wife, and they never even knew it. That was later, of course. He’d’ve been a fine one to’ve had in the last little blowup.
“Oh, he helled around aplenty in his youth. He ran a pearl raider clean to Mytho and down to Condore Island and then down to the Straits Settlement. That was the last we heard of him for three or four years until he turned up at Bougainville with an eighty-foot schooner, fourteen kanakas, and a white wife. Paul’s Friend there was one of the kanakas. Fair worshipped Paul, they did. It seems Rejoc scooped ’em off the little island at Mapia, where they were being fattened for the table, so to speak. They owed their lives to him, and they damn well knew it.
“The wife was named Sheila. She was White Russian from Singapore, and he found her at Puerto Princessa. That’s Palawan, and enough said—bugs and heat. She’d been with a touring company of actors that got stranded, and she was about to take the easy way out when he showed up. She worshipped him too.
“Everybody worshipped him.”
“Even you?” I asked.
Charlie slammed his glass onto the tabletop. The veins stood out on the back of his hand where he clenched his fist. “Yes, damn you! Even me! He took me off Malekula when I didn’t have a thing but the borrowed clothes on my back and a place scooped out in the sand for a bed. He set me up in business, showed me how to handle the natives. I wouldn’t even be alive today if it hadn’t been for him, and he’d be alive today if it hadn’t been for me.”
His hand slowly relaxed from around the whiskey glass, fingers outstretched limply against the golden tan of the tabletop. The glass rolled free on its side.
“Nature plays the rough game down here,” he said, voice flat. “She may make a couple of passes at you, a hurricane or two, only playing—but you can always tell when the real number is up. There’s no fooling and no use running. She’s played with you long enough, and that’s the time and place. You might just as well face it.”
He grimaced and swiveled abruptly, pouring himself a drink with trembling hands. The drink disappeared down his throat in one convulsive gulp. The heat around us pressed even closer.
“It was 1927,” he said, rolling the glass under his hand on the table. “You maybe read about the blow. It cleaned off half the islands through here. I was running the trading station at Tongareva then. It was coming on for the hurricane season when we heard about the strike at Nuku Hiva; all clean shell and, if you’d believe half the stories, pearls big as marbles in every third one.
“We were making big plans then, Paul and me. We were partners by then. We were going to start up a fleet of schooners trading through the Marquesas, the Tuamotus, and down to the Society group. We were going to set up an empire, and a strike like that one set our blood on fire. It was just the beginning we needed.”
Charlie closed his eyes and went on speaking, his voice lower. “Paul had grown more cautious, though. He said he could feel a big wind in the air. He wasn’t afraid; it was just that he had responsibilities by then—little Sheila and Paul Jr., who had just turned ten.
“The kid was a small copy of his dad—big for his age. He used to go swimming in the lagoon with the native kids and, just like his old man, he was the boss. He was better’n they were, and they knew it and so did he. He had a Polynesian amah he drove nuts keeping up with him and, of course, Paul’s Friend there. That man was like his dog.”
Charlie looked at his hands, which were trembling violently, and made a visible effort to quiet them. They became still like something dying.
“I couldn’t make the run,” he said, looking at his hands. “Things were set up at the station then so I could handle it best. That’s a lie, of course, but it’s what I tell myself. Besides, Paul was the sailor half of the partnership, and we both knew it.
“I kept after him. ‘A quick run and we’ll be millionaires,’ I kept telling him. ‘We’re the only outfit in the area with a diving suit.’ That’s what I told him, and lots more: ‘Sure, there’s a risk this time of year, but not a great one with you running the show.’
“Finally he agreed. He picked ten kanakas, Paul’s Friend among ’em, and Riki, a half-French, half-Polynesian first mate who worked for us. And he took the boy. It was her idea—his wife’s. She knew he’d run no big risks with the boy along. He took the big schooner, the Hiva Oa she was called, after the island in the Marquesas.
“We got some of the story from the boy afterwards and a damn little of it from Paul’s Friend there.
“They had good winds all the way up past Caroline Island, and then headwinds slowed ’em ten days into Eiao. They’d no more than anchored in the lagoon behind the big island when the wind dropped and the air became muggy. Paul ducked into the doghouse. When he came out, his face was grim. ‘The barometer’s at 29.80,’ he said. ‘It’s fallen fourteen-hundredths of an inch in the past hour.’
“‘Let’s get outta here,’ Riki urged.
“But there they were, easterly of Eiao, with a chance of getting the latest word on the big strike. Paul made a quick decision and ordered the whaleboat over. He took Paul’s Friend and the boy, and they went ashore, the boy at the tiller, the two men at the oars.
“There was a French civil agent on the island then—M. Clemenceau, a little man with a goatee and a handlebar mustache. He met ’em on the beach and asked to be taken off in the schooner along with the natives. There were some twenty souls on the island, the rest being down at Nuku Hiva. There was a plenty bad wind coming, he said. He had it on the wireless. He thought they’d have a better chance at sea than on that inverted dish of an island with the highest point six feet above sea level. Paul told him all right and to hurry it. M. Clemenceau began rounding up his charges.
“Meanwhile, Paul signaled Riki on the Hiva Oa to up anchor and make sail. The schooner got under way, tacking back and forth in the lagoon like a chicken looking for a hawk.
“Paul took the boy and went up to the village to hurry things. The natives were Polynesians and slow as a matter of principle. By the time they were all rounded up with their belongings, they could hear the surf breaking clean over the reef, and there was a long swell onto the island beach. They ran for the whaleboat. When they reached it, they all just stood clustered around it for a minute, looking seaward. The Hiva Oa was running free through the reef channel, shortening sail fast. One look to the southeast showed why: there was a black line out there in the distance, rushing down on the island like an express train. Those on the island had to take their chances there; Riki was trying to save the schooner.
“Paul went into action. With the natives helping, he picked up the whaleboat and ran it over the island to the lee side. There he took the axe from under the thwart and lopped off a palm tree about four feet up. From this he ran a long mooring line to the whaleboat and launched it into the lagoon, calling for as many to join him as would.
“But the natives and M. Clemenceau were already picking out their palm trees and lopping off the tops and lashing themselves down. They were none too soon, either. The hurricane struck them like all the winds of the worlds rolled into one.
“Little Paul crouched with his dad and Paul’s Friend under the whaleboat’s gunwale. He said they could see palm fronds whipping past overhead like bullets. Once there was a shouting voice that went by them, out of reach. Seas were breaking clear over the island by then, sweeping everything before them.
“The kid said you couldn’t put your head above the gunwale and face the wind without it puffing out your cheeks and almost blowing your head loose. The air seemed to become filled with flying water, and there was an increasing howl of wind.
“The whaleboat took it well. She was built to stay afloat, and she did, with the long line to the palm stump humming taut as a guitar string. The noise and the surge of the seas seemed to go on until they imagined it would never end, and right at the point where they figured they couldn’t take any more … well, it ended. They were in the heart of the storm. Outside the reef, the seas rose straight up like Chinese mountains, crashing down on the coral barrier and sending their uneven turbulence toward the island.
“There were blots of wreckage and palm trees scattered clear out to the reef. When they looked at the island, they counted only five people still lashed to the stripped palms.
“Then the wind struck them again, flattening everything, driving down the seas, and the waves came back, sweeping over the reef and on over the island. For more than an hour, the whaleboat must’ve taken this new beating and then, just like that, with no extra sound or excitement, their palm stump gave way and let ’em go out into the lagoon toward the reef.
“The stump and the weight of the wet line to it acted as a sea anchor and kept their nose into the wind, or they would’ve capsized and swamped in the first minute. They were heading for the reef fast. Paul ordered the kid to lay low and told the kanaka to take a steering oar; then he went over the side at the stern, holding onto the grab lines.
“The kid knew what Paul was trying to do—the seas were breaking clean over the reef, and they had maybe a fifty-fifty chance to ride one safely over the top. Paul was going to try to boost that chance by picking the wave. He had a knife in his teeth, ready to cut the line to the stump.
“There weren’t many sounds that could survive in that wind, but the surf on the reef was one of ’em. It kept getting louder and louder until even the wind took second place. Then there was a lurch, and the wind and water seemed to pick up the whaleboat and sweep it over the reef. The kanaka managed to keep her bow on while the kid rigged a new sea anchor out of the boat’s kedge and two oars. He was a sailor’s kid, little Paul was, and he did it up smart, got it over the side himself, and snugged it down.
“Where was Big Paul? He was hanging onto the side, and there was a gray look on his face. The kanaka hauled him aboard, and the kid seen what the coral had done to his dad’s left arm and back—right down to the bone and deep into the ribs. A big spike of it must’ve caught him. Little Paul was a brave kid, though, and he helped the kanaka make bandages out of a shirt and got his dad comfortable. And he even took his trick with the steering oar.
“The storm left them sometime the next morning. They kept a sharp eye out for the Hiva Oa, but she was never seen again—by them or anybody else.
“First thing the kanaka did was take stock. They had the axe, four tins of bully, six tins of pork and beans, and six tins of pineapple, a fifteen-gallon water breaker about three-quarters full, a mast and sail, a boat compass, a small tarpaulin, a tablet, a pencil, and a protractor.
“Paul was conscious most of that day, but he’d lost so much blood he could barely move. They rigged the tarp over him as soon as the sun got hot. Toward noon, Paul shared a tin of pineapple and cup of water with the kid and the kanaka. He was rational enough to help make the decision not to head back toward Eiao against the wind. The big blow left ’em somewhere to the northwest of the island. He told Paul’s Friend to set course for Caroline Island and showed ’em how to use the protractor on a meridian sight for latitude.
“Toward sunset he got delirious, and he raved and tossed all night so bad the kanaka had to sit on him sometimes to keep him from throwing himself overboard. The kid was at the steering oar most of the night. At daylight, Paul quieted down and slept some. He woke up about noon. He told ’em he felt a little light-headed but otherwise all right. And he got Paul’s Friend down under the tarp with him and made the native promise by the white man’s God that he’d get the boy home safe to his mother no matter what happened. And Paul’s Friend promised.
“That was the second day.
“More than a week passed. They were through the pineapple and well into the beans. Paul was so weak by then that even the kid could hold him down when he got delirious. The whaleboat had developed a nasty leak, too, so it had to be bailed every four or five hours, the kid and the native taking turns about.
“Paul’s Friend whiled away the time telling the kid stories, some he’d learned at the mission school and some he’d learned other places. He knew all the stories about his own people and those of the Polynesians. He told the kid about Vitu Tapani, the fire god whose son stole the secret of fire and traded it to a mortal in exchange for a bride.
“He told him about the demigod Sagsag, who had a hut with a center pole that was really a stairway to the underworld, and how Sagsag’s sons, Niku and Keaki, battled for possession of the stairway when the old man was away.
“These stories were told in the native way, which takes a great deal of time. The kanaka knew Big Paul was dying and he wanted to distract the kid. Sometimes Big Paul was awake enough to listen, and sometimes he raved so loudly the kanaka had to be silent.
“On the eighteenth day, they hit a line squall and caught some rain—about three gallons—with the tarpaulin and the sail. Paul was unconscious most of the time by then. The storm passed and left a wicked cross chop on the ground swell. As they were making sail, the boat shifting and heaving, the kid fell over the center thwart and hit his head on the water keg that was lashed amidships. He just lay there, with blood running from his scalp into the bilge. The kanaka cleated the sheet line, lashed the steering oar, and rushed to the kid. He felt the boy’s head, and there was a soft spot where the kid had cracked into the keg. Paul’s Friend rigged a place for Little Paul beside Big Paul and went back to the steering oar—course south-southeast, bailing every five hours.
“With his own knowledge of the sea, the native had already realized they’d missed Caroline, what with leeway and the easterly current through there. He was trying for Vostok by that time.
“Three more days he sailed and tended his sick, spoon-feeding Little Paul, trying to get some water down Big Paul with no
success.
On the third day after Little Paul was injured, three things happened: the kid regained consciousness for a few minutes, Big Paul died, and the kanaka realized they’d missed Vostok too. There he was, a mission savage, son of a cannibal, grandson of a cannibal, in the middle of an ocean in ten degrees south latitude with an injured kid, a dead man, and a promise. He changed course due east for Rakahanga and prepared his master for burial at sea.”
A grim laugh from Charlie brought me back to the present.
“There’s a scene for you to put into a book,” he said. “A black savage mumbling Christian words over his friend with an ocean for a backdrop. Hah! Rakahanga was four hundred miles away, and he was about out of food, water half gone, and no charts. The whaleboat could do three knots top speed, and it made two knots leeway for every five ahead. But he made it—that determined kanaka made it, and he delivered the kid to the Australian doctor at Rakahanga. Then he went away by himself and made his own grief over the death of his master.
“See those scars!” Charlie Jens pointed again at the dark man by the fire. “He made ’em himself in his grief. Christian? Pfah! And that fire! What do you think he’s doing there? He says he can see Paul in the flames. See Paul, mind you. And him blinded by his own hands!”
I found that I was sitting on the edge of my chair and I consciously forced myself back. Charlie Jens became silent. There was a little sea breeze now, flickering the flames of the fire on the beach, shifting the shadows on the scarred face and arms. It dried the perspiration on our faces and gave us a momentary illusion of coolness.
From out of the shadows to the left of the kanaka came a tall man, wide shouldered, with a free and easy stride. For a moment I had the feeling that here was Paul Rejoc, brought to life by Charlie’s story. And then, as the figure paused by Paul’s Friend, I realized that this must be the son.
Charlie began to speak, almost in a whisper. “She had her son, and he became her whole life. She didn’t need me. If he hadn’t come back, she’d’ve needed me … like I needed her.”
Frank Herbert Page 26
