The Navigator

by Morris West

  ‘I know, that’s why I’d like to do it. It would prove something maybe.’

  ‘It’s pretty lonely up there.’

  ‘Tioto told me. He doesn’t want me to go; but I’d be a lot lonelier down here, watching Barbara waving her tail for everyone but me. You could visit me Chief. You could send people up. Besides, it wouldn’t be forever, just until I get the maggots out of my skull.’

  ‘Charlie, I hate the idea of your running away. Why not sweat it out here? Two or three days and the worst will be over.’

  ‘And I’ll have that bitch under my eyes everywhere I turn. It’s too much. Let me go Chief!’

  There was no good reason to refuse, one very good reason to consent: it would spare the community the embarrassment of a bitter divorcement. Thorkild agreed and added a caution:

  ‘If you’re sick Charlie, or you find it too lonely, come down. People don’t care as much as you think about you and Barbara. They’re too busy with their own concerns. Promise?’

  ‘I promise Chief. I’ll put a few tools together and move off.’

  ‘Good luck, Charlie. Don’t stay away too long.’

  Before the rest of the camp was astir, he was gone. Tioto was grim and dubious. The terrace was a bad place. For a mixed-up man like Charlie it was doubly dangerous. It would have been better to keep him on the beach, make him a fisherman, let him work away from the others until he was ready again for human companionship. Thorkild shrugged off the argument. Better to let him go his own gait until he was ready to walk, straight and strong again. There was a big blow coming; they had best secure the camp before it hit.

  The storm lasted all day and half the night, fifteen hours of high winds and driving rain, and thunderous seas, during which they huddled inside the leaking hut, keeping themselves busy with hand work: plaiting sennit and palm fibre, weaving mats and baskets, scraping shells into hooks, making spears and traps for the fishing. It was simple, satisfying labour, enlivened by small jokes at the expense of the fumblers and easy, discursive talk about their future plans.

  Franz Harsanyi and Mark Gilman gave their demonstration. The boy had a prodigious memory, both aural and visual. He could read a page of print and recite it back, word perfect. Call him a list of names and numbers, or the verses of a poem, and he would chant them over, without a hesitation or an error. He had a natural ear for languages and was already picking up dialect talk. Franz Harsanyi, in a long burst of eloquence, developed the theme he had first broached to Thorkild.

  ‘… We’ve all got certain specialized knowledge which we’re not using now, but which may be enormously useful later on…Doctor Anderton for instance, and Peter Lorillard and Ellen Ching with her botany. We can record some of it, on the backs of charts or in the margins of books; but for the most part we’ll have to preserve and transmit it in the old way, by memory. Simon Cohen can help, by setting it to simple melodies and rhythms, which make it easier to remember. But we should all work at it. At night, when we’re sitting round the fire, each one could contribute a piece of his own knowledge. We set it in mnemonic form. We chant it, call it over, test each other on it. It’s like a game; but it’s a very important game; and it’s been played for centuries. Young Mark here is a genius at it, as you’ve seen…Well, what do you say Chief?’

  ‘I say it’s a great idea. It puts us all back to school. It keeps our minds alive. It gives us a pool of knowledge on which we can draw if any one of us – God forbid! – drops out or becomes incapable. We should try to develop a situation where we’re all teaching one another – just as we’re doing now with this hand work. We’ll make it a regular thing – an hour every night after supper.’

  ‘Just a minute!’ Yoko Nagamuna piped up from the corner where she was working with Hernan Castillo. ‘That’s another regulation on top of everything we’ve got already! I register an objection Chief.’

  ‘Do you mind telling us why, Yoko?’

  ‘It seems to me we’re getting back to the very thing some of us have been trying to escape, even at home: a totally regulated society. That’s what caused the fuss last night. You want rules and timetables for everything – even for sex. You’re not leaving us any room to grow as ourselves.’

  ‘She’s got a point.’ Simon Cohen was swift to confirm the protest. ‘Me, for instance, I’m happy to do my share of the work; but I’m damned if I want to spend every evening making up nursery rhymes about medicine and navigation …’

  ‘But if you get sick,’ said Thorkild evenly, ‘you’ll still expect medical attention. And when we try to sail away from here you’ll still expect someone to lay a course and identify the stars and know how the winds blow and the currents run.’

  ‘Sure; but that’s a specialist function.’

  ‘What happens,’ asked Franz Harsanyi, ‘if the specialist gets washed overboard or breaks his neck?’

  ‘Agreed,’ said Yoko. ‘But my point is that there should be an element of personal choice. I’m a nutritionist. I’d be happy to understudy Sally in medicine or Ellen in botany; but I don’t want to wear Peter Lorillard’s hat, because I don’t have the head for it.’

  ‘Seems to me,’ Carl Magnusson was testy, ‘we’d all like to eat the omelette, provided someone else makes it.’

  ‘I think we need regulation,’ said Adam Briggs bluntly. ‘Otherwise our efforts will be so diffused we’ll get nothing done…This house, for instance, it’s shaking over our heads right now. It gives us no privacy. We’ve got to build other and better ones. That means our labour’s got to be marshalled and directed.’

  ‘I’ve accepted that,’ said Simon Cohen.

  ‘You’ve accepted the part that suits you!’

  ‘Let me try to explain something.’ Sally Anderton cut in quickly. ‘You may not be aware of it. As a doctor I see it plainly. Since our arrival here, our diet has changed radically. We’re losing a lot of salt, because of the humidity. Our mineral intake and our protein intake is lower than before, because we’re eating tropical fruits and fish instead of hard meats. Unconsciously, we’re all slowing down, to compensate for the new situation. There’s a psychological side-effect too. There’s a Greek word for it – accidie. It means torpor, or indifference. It’s compounded by monotony, a limited and repetitive series of activities. Now that’s precisely what Gunnar Thorkild is trying to avoid. He’s lived this island life. He knows the traps and the pitfalls. He’s not trying to regulate your lives like some petty tyrant. He’s trying to keep you active and interested and ready for the big tasks ahead; farming our land, building our boat…It’s no secret that I love him; but I’d face him down if I thought he were wrong or unjust. In this case he isn’t…’

  ‘And I’ll say the rest of it,’ said Molly Kaapu. ‘You’re haole. You don’t know how to live the way we do. If you don’t learn, you’ll end up on the beach staring out to sea, with flies crawling out of your sores!’

  Yoko Nagamuna was not to be put down so easily.

  ‘I still say …’

  ‘Don’t say it, kid!’ Hernan Castillo gave a big theatrical yawn. ‘Write a book about it when you get home. Now, for God’s sake help me with these bindings.’

  Some time during the high fury of the storm, the Frigate Bird disappeared, sucked down in the great deeps beyond the sentinel rock. Nothing was left to show that she had ever been there except a few balks of broken timber and miscellaneous rubbish thrown up on the beach. Thorkild was the happier for her going, because now the channel was open and the tragic reminder of their voyage and its ill fortune was removed from sight. Now they could navigate their canoe beyond the reef, explore the further coasts of the island, and, when their big vessel was built, float it into open water.

  For the present, there was other, more urgent work. After the ravages of the wind and the rain the big hut was barely habitable; so with Tioto and Lorillard and Adam Briggs, he pegged out the shape of a permanent, beach-side village. In all there were ten men and eight women. But Charlie Kamakau was away, so he decided th
at they should build eight small huts and a larger store-house, which could also be used as a sleeping place.

  This time the labour would be more systematic. The men would cut and erect the bamboo frames. The women would prepare the bindings and weave the palm thatch and the mats for the walls. Willy Kuhio and Eva and Mark Gilman and Jenny would be detached for the fishing and the food gathering, and the cooking.

  The design he proposed for each house was simple in the extreme – four main posts with cross members to hold them firm, a skillion roof, pitched sharp enough to throw off the rain, with bamboo slats and a thatch of palm fibre and walls of palm matting, which could be raised or lowered to let in the breeze or close out the rain. No nails or cleats would be needed. The members would be lashed, the wall and roof coverings laced with fibre. The dwellings would be set, four on each side, facing each other across the mouth of the valley, where it debouched on to the beach. The store-house would be set crosswise between them, leaving a space for a log-slide down which the trees for their boat could be brought to the beach. The open ground between would be the place for the fire-pit and their communal work.

  About this project at least there were no arguments. They were all beginning to chafe at their enforced confinement in a single dwelling. Tempers were frayed and they were beginning to gibe at each other’s personal idiosyncrasies. This one snored, that one belched, another took up twice the normal sleeping room. As the first pegs were being driven, Carl Magnusson drew Thorkild aside. He was stammering and self-conscious as a school-boy.

  ‘Uh – Thorkild…I thought I’d tell you – uh…When you’re set up here, I’m – uh – moving in with Molly Kaapu.’

  Thorkild was hard put to suppress a smile; but he managed an offhand answer.

  ‘Sure, Carl. Pick any house you want.’

  ‘Hell! It doesn’t matter which. It’s just that, well, I can’t do much for myself and Molly’s a kind soul and …’

  ‘You don’t have to spell it, Carl. I understand.’

  ‘I guess you do. Queer though, isn’t it? Here am I, the big taipan, best name, biggest money in the islands, shacking up with an old girl that used to scrub my mother’s floors…And what’s more, I’m glad of it – damn glad!’ Suddenly he was shaking with laughter. ‘I wonder what my wife would say if she could see me now? – or James Neal Anderson or your friend Flanagan?’

  ‘I think those two would envy you, Carl.’

  ‘They probably would at that. Tell me, how are you going to arrange the rest of the housing?’

  ‘Well, there’s a place for Sally and me, one for Lorillard and Martha. Mark can bunk with the boys. The others can make whatever combinations they choose. It’ll be interesting to see how they work it out.’

  ‘You’re damn right it will be,’ Carl Magnusson snorted irritably. ‘I can’t figure how their minds work; but Sally Anderton gave them a real come-uppance – and you showed more patience than I ever gave you credit for.’

  ‘I’m learning Carl, but we’re still only at the beginning. I’d better get back to work now. There’s a lot to be done. By the way, what colour curtains would you like?’

  ‘Go to hell!’ said Carl Magnusson; and stamped off to join Molly Kaapu and the weavers.

  At the end of five days, all the huts were framed and the thatching had begun. They were working in rhythm now, steadily and cheerfully, so Thorkild decided to leave them for a day and go up to visit Charlie Kamakau on the mountain terrace. This time he took Sally Anderton, with the half-hearted excuse that Charlie might need some medical attention. Tioto gave him a pair of fish, fresh caught and wrapped in leaves, for a gift to Charlie; and on a last-minute impulse, Thorkild took a bottle of whisky as a peace-offering from the whole group.

  As they made their way up the first slopes, Sally was as excited as a child at the profusion of fruits and flowers and the orchids that grew from the crannies of rocks and trees. Later as the air grew heavier and the insects began to plague them, she became quiet and thoughtful. Thorkild asked her:

  ‘Something’s the matter Sally. What is it?’

  ‘There’s an awful lot of mosquitoes.’

  ‘That’s not unusual.’

  ‘I know…How long would you say it is since people lived here?’

  ‘Hard to say. The pottery we found is very old. As we open up the land, we may find other relics that will give us a better idea. Why do you ask?’

  ‘Mosquitoes carry the disease of filariasis which is endemic in certain Pacific Islands. Prolonged exposure to it produces the condition we call elephantiasis – enormous swellings of limbs and other members.’

  ‘I know. I’ve seen it. Horrible.’

  ‘In this part of the world the filaria are usually carried by a day-flying mosquito…which deposits them in the blood. Usually the disease results from prolonged exposure. But if we’re going to have people working up here, we’ll have to be aware of the danger and try to combat it.’

  ‘How, for Pete’s sake? We don’t have mosquito nets. We’ve got no drugs.’

  ‘We’d really have to try to kill the mosquitoes themselves.’

  ‘Impossible. That would mean spraying all the breeding places clearing miles of tropical vegetation!’

  ‘Don’t snap at me darling. I’m just pointing out a danger.’

  ‘Of course…I’m sorry. We’re really helpless aren’t we?’

  ‘Wherever we are, we’re at risk. The best we can do is recognize the risk and minimize it as much as possible…Is it much further now?’

  ‘About half a mile. Smell the smoke? He’s probably burning off.’

  For a man, working alone in a tropic jungle, Charlie Kamakau had accomplished a minor miracle. With no other tools but the fire axe, and a seaman’s knife, and Hernan Castillo’s stone adze, he had grubbed out an area nearly twenty yards square, leaving the fruit-bearing trees and the big trunks standing and piling the undergrowth into great heaps, which he burnt with the diesel he had hauled up from the beach. He had built himself a rough shelter of bamboo and a small oven of stones. His once bulky body was honed down to bone and muscle. He was filthy with dust and ash. There were suppurating sores on his arms and legs, but there was a fierce, fanatic triumph in his bloodshot eyes.

  ‘Look at it Chief! They say Charlie Kamakau’s not a man! I’ll bet you three of those young haole couldn’t have done it in the same time!’

  ‘It’s wonderful Charlie! But don’t kill yourself!’

  ‘Kill myself? Look at me! Do I look like a dying man? Give me a month, and we’ll be ready to make our first gardens. You tell ’em that, Chief.’

  ‘I’ll tell ’em Charlie. They’ll be very proud of you. They sent you up some presents. The fish are from Tioto. The whisky’s from all of us!’

  ‘Not from Madam Barbara! Don’t tell me that!’

  ‘From her too, Charlie.’ Sally tried to placate him. ‘She’s…well, she’s been very quiet since you left.’

  ‘I don’t want to hear about her!’

  ‘We’re setting up the beach village now Charlie,’ Thorkild told him quietly. ‘As soon as that’s done, I’ll send you some help up here.’

  ‘Not before I say so Chief!’ He was instantly on edge. ‘You hear that? Not before I say I’m ready. They’ve got to know what Charlie Kamakau can do.’

  ‘They know it already Charlie. They miss you down there.’

  ‘That’s good! They have to know they can’t insult a high man. And that’s another thing Chief. When we build our place here, I want to run it.’

  ‘Let’s talk about that when the time comes.’

  ‘Talk about it as much as you like, but I’ll run it. This is a very special place – there’s a big kapu here. I’m the only one that knows it and understands it.’

  ‘How do you know it Charlie?’ asked Sally Anderton innocently.

  ‘I’ll show you.’ He disappeared into the shelter and came out a moment later carrying a parcel of fei leaves. He laid it on the stone, and before he
opened it, made them step back a pace, and warned them, ‘Don’t touch. Just look.’

  He opened the parcel and spread the contents on the rock: a small stone mortar and a pestle of polished green-stone, a war club of hardwood, finely carved but pitted and scored with age, a human skull, yellow as old ivory, with a gaping hole in the front temporal bone. He gave them a mocking wolfish grin and said:

  ‘Big, big kapu, eh Chief? That’s a priest’s bowl, to mix the magic plants. This stone was for sacrifice and this was the club that killed the victims. That’s right isn’t it Chief?’

  ‘Probably,’ said Thorkild quietly. ‘Where did you find these things?’

  ‘Right here beside the platform. I found the club first, then the head. The day after, I dug up the bowl. They wanted me to find it, because they wanted me to be the guardian of this place. You understand that, don’t you Chief?’

  ‘I’ll try to understand it, Charlie. Would you like us to cook the fish for you?’

  ‘No. I never eat till night. I’ve got to get back to work.’

  Sally Anderton moved a step closer to him.

  ‘Charlie. You’ve got bad sores on your legs and your arms. They’ll get worse if we don’t treat them. Would you let me have a look at them, please?’

  ‘No! They’re nothing. I clean them at the end of the day! Thanks for the food and the drink. You take her home Chief. I’ll tell you when I’m ready.’

  ‘All right Charlie. I’ll be back soon.’

  ‘Just you next time, Chief. We talk, high man to high man, eh?’

  ‘Sure Charlie. Take care now!’

  As they turned away and plunged into the undergrowth, they heard him singing in a high, cracked voice the song of Kaka and Koko who fell into the sea and were swallowed by a great shark so that never again could they mate with man or woman.

  ‘He’s half-way round the bend,’ said Thorkild gloomily.

  ‘He’s right round,’ said Sally Anderton firmly. ‘And he’ll stay there, unless we can bring him back and hold him in contact with reality for a while.’

  ‘And how do we manage that my dear doctor – with his girl a constant mockery?’