by Rosa Jordan
Matey solved the problem by standing up and throwing off his shirt. “Damn me if I ain’t stuck at sea with a bunch of lily-livered landlubbers!” With that he dove overboard and swam under the cutter. A minute later he popped to the surface. “It ain’t clear through, but she’ll need caulking pretty quick.”
Matey was hauled aboard. Men picked up the oars and began to row. The tension of sailing through these claws of coral showed on every face, except Mary’s. As if in a trance, she pointed to the left, then straight, left again, now right. With no further hesitation, Will, standing behind her, called her signals to the rowers.
Mary had become as tanned as the men. The hunger endured during the week they had battled the storm, and the week of near-starvation that followed, had pared away her curves, leaving her with a hard leanness that was more that of a boy than a woman. Will caught the long braid of sun-bleached hair hanging down her back, and held it briefly in his hand. Mary felt the gesture, and in it the longing, which she understood. She supposed that the softness of her hair was the only thing about her that seemed feminine, in the old way.
At long last the mainland came into view. The very sight of it in the distance gave the rowers a renewed energy that bordered on the jolly. It was dusk by the time they approached close enough to see how rugged this part of the coast was. Mary scanned the shore, looking for a place of sufficient calm where they wouldn’t be thrown against the rocks. Will, standing behind her, motioned for the men to row parallel to the shore, as he looked for a likely spot.
Cox called, “We got to make land, Cap’n. She’s seeping bad.”
“Yonder,” Will pointed. “Between them rocks.”
“Won’t be easy,” Matey allowed, not willing to admit himself afraid.
“I’ve landed in worse, and on darker nights back in Cornwall,” Will said confidently. “There, men!” He pointed again.
The oarsmen followed his lead. The boat rose on the crest of a wave and came down frighteningly close to the rocks. There was a momentary calm when all saw the small, sandy cove Will had sighted, where they could land safely after all.
Suddenly, out of the twilight, a lance sailed past, just inches above the bow of the boat. What Mary saw in that instant made her scream. Dark bodies perched among the rocks on either side of the tiny cove, spears poised and letting fly. Many fell short, but more than a few struck the boat. Every oar swung to a single side, forcing the cutter to turn tail and plow into a wave. For the next few minutes there was no time for anything but pulling on the oars and bailing. At last they were past the breakers, exhausted. And night was upon them.
“The bastards!” Will howled in frustration.
“Next time I’ll have a bloody musket in me hand!” Scrapper boasted uselessly.
Matey guffawed. “You fancy you could hit something at that distance? You make me laugh!”
“I could hit you at this distance, needing nothing but a fist,” Scrapper threatened, rising and half turning around in his seat.
Matey grabbed Scrapper by the throat and squeezed until the boy gagged. “And a bit of air, maybe?” Matey grinned evilly.
Cox rose and interposed his bulk between them. “Bless me, boys. That’s enough!”
Mary ignored the ruckus and turned to face the open sea. “A little to starboard, there. That’s it,” she said quietly.
Pip leaned forward. “Can you see in the dark, Miss Mary?”
“The coral is not something you see, Pip. You feel it,” she said in a low voice, for she knew no other way to explain it.
Charlotte whined, and the baby wailed. Will said, “They’re needing something to eat.”
“Then they must be fed,” Mary said, without taking her eyes from the black water. Raising her voice to be heard further back, she said, “Easy to port. Slowly. There.” And lowering her voice again, to speak to Will, “Give them a sip of water first.”
*
They made it safely through the night, although by what magic or miracle Mary herself could not have said. Dawn found them sailing smoothly between the coast and a string of off-shore islands. A little after sunup, they came upon an island with a likely-looking cove, into which flowed a freshwater stream. As there were no native boats or signs of encampment, they deemed the place to be uninhabited. To everyone’s relief, Will announced that they would lay up there for a few days, long enough to repair the boat and replenish their supplies.
After the boat had been dragged into the shallows and overturned for caulking, Bados was sent to fish and look for turtle eggs, and Luke sent to set snares and explore the area. In mid-afternoon, Luke returned with a dozen small animals.
Charlotte watched with fascination as Luke cleaned them and showed her the young that came out of their little pouches. But she set up a wail when she learned that she could not keep them as playthings for, being separated from their mothers, they were as good as dead already.
“I never saw creatures such as these, with pockets on their bellies, and young ones inside,” Luke admitted. “But it seems like they ought to be edible. There’s only vegetable matter in their innards, so I can’t see they’d be much different from rabbits and squirrels like we have back home.”
“I’ll spit them over the fire,” Mary decided. “That should make them tasty enough.”
“Get ‘em warm and we’ll eat ‘em, no questions asked,” Cox called from where he and the others were at work caulking the overturned boat.
“I et monkey before, in Africa,” Matey offered.
“What took you to Africa?” James queried.
“Jumped ship there, back in ‘75,” Matey responded. “Stayed ten years. A hell hole, it was, but better’n being keel-hauled for kicking the bosun in the nuts.”
“I et a rat once, in London.” Pip, sitting atop the boat’s upturned bottom, nodded at the skewered meat Mary had just placed over the fire. “Cooked it just like that.”
Scrapper, who sat facing him, looked closely at Pip. “Thing about eating rat,” he dead-panned, “it makes you look like one. Twitchy little nose, just five or six whiskers stuck in around the mouth—.”
Pip flung a handful of caulking at his tormentor. Scrapper gave him a shove that sent him sliding down the side of the boat onto the sand. Pip sat up, unfortunately in line with Scrapper’s foot, which kicked him square in the face.
“Aye, but you’re a mean bastard, Scrapper!” James exclaimed.
“That I am,” Scrapper said complacently. “But I don’t look like no rat.”
Pip crawled across the sand to Mary, wiping blood from his nose.
“Get back over here, boy,” Will commanded. “The job’s not done.”
Pip hunkered down between Mary and Luke like a cowering pup.
“Leave him be,” Mary said shortly.
Before anything could develop between husband and wife, Luke stood and said easily, “I found a nice little spring a ways up yonder, Cap’n. Tasted mighty sweet. Mind if I take the boy with me to fetch back a few pails?”
Will gave a curt nod and turned away, letting it pass. Mary understood that the others were aware of the tension between herself and Will. It saddened and shamed her, but there was nothing she could do except, like Will, let it pass.
Over the next few days, as they enjoyed an abundance of fresh food and clean, clear water, small annoyances faded and a sense of camaraderie returned. Mary asked that Pip be regularly assigned to attend to Emanuel, for fear that when she was occupied in cooking and drying meat and fruit for their onward journey, he might crawl into the sea and drown. Will saw the need and readily agreed.
Mary herself, when she had time, took Charlotte in hand and taught her to swim in the clear lagoon, as she herself had been taught to swim at about the same age. When Mary was busy preparing food, Charlotte trailed after Will, or hung around with whoever was do
ing something the child deemed of interest.
One day, as Will stood examining the caulking done the day before, Mary went to him and spread her chart on the sand at his feet. “We’re here, I judge.” She pointed to Cape York’s eastern coast.
“How much further to Timor?” Will wanted to know.
“Maybe fifteen hundred miles.”
James came to stand next to Will. He pointed to New Guinea. “There is nothing here?”
“I don’t think so,” Mary replied. “That is to say, nothing that would attract a European ship that might get us home by and by. Once we get round this point,” she touched the northernmost tip of the Australian continent, “we’ll be out of the coral and the sea will be safer. But the land may still hold hazards. Captain Smit says natives to the north are cannibals.”
At the mention of Smit, Will snatched up the chart, rolled it, and walked away, slapping it irritably against his thigh. “Matey! Scrapper! Bados! Luke! Come on, mates. The tide’s come in. Let’s get this tub floating again.”
Mary followed him, put her hand round the chart next to his, and said quietly, “Here, let me take that so it doesn’t get in your way.”
He gave her a hard look, but her eyes were mild and non-confrontational. He let go of the chart, and went on gathering his men about him. Mary understood the mention of Smit to have been an indiscretion on her part, and vowed not to be so careless again.
But that evening, when all were bedded down on the sand, and quiet, so that Mary fancied only herself and the stars were conscious, resentment welled up inside her. It was too much, she thought, to do all that she was expected to do and, beyond those burdens, to mould her every word in such a way that none gave offence to Will. Although her husband slept on one side of her, and her children on the other, she felt an ever-deepening sense of loneliness; an emptiness that needed filling with the presence of the only person, since the death of her parents, who made her feel understood, and less than totally alone.
A few days after leaving that place, and finding themselves forced toward the mainland by coral, they came to a river and rowed up it a ways, looking for a place where the boat would be sheltered near a likely spot for camping. But the vegetation was altogether strange, denser than any Mary had ever seen. Seemingly impenetrable greenery grew right down to the water’s edge—and hung over into it; trees, bushes and vines, as thick as could be. Birds in number were disturbed by their approach; and butterflies, some so large that they might be mistaken for birds, fluttered over the water. They steered toward the middle of the river, although the current was stronger there, to avoid being swatted in the face by branches that reached out from either shore.
“’Tis eerie,” Mary murmured. “I’ve not seen such as this before. Why, look yonder.” She pointed to a spiky plant growing in the fork of an overhanging tree. “It’s like there’s not enough ground, so you’ve got plants growing right out of trees, and vines hanging from both.”
“We’ve come into the tropics, that’s what we’ve done,” Matey announced. “I seen the likes of this, I have, over yonder in Africa, down south of the Canaries.”
They paddled the better part of an hour until they came upon an opening in the trees, a muddy bank backed by mashed-down vegetation. “There,” Luke motioned. “Might that do?”
Suddenly Bados, who had spoken scarcely a word since Will’s reprimand back on the sand spit, half-stood in the middle of the boat and shouted, “No! Turn round! Turn round!”
Startled, the others gaped at him. He was pointing at the far end of the muddy bank.
“What?” asked several voices. “What you on about, Bados?”
Mary’s gaze followed in the direction he pointed, and at first found nothing. Then, what she saw all but stopped her heart. It was a creature lying in the mud, and close to the colour of it. The snouted head alone was nearly three feet long, and the length of its body she could not guess. They were still fifty yards off, but now that she had spotted it she could see the huge jaws, slightly parted, from which protruded great fangs.
“A dragon!” Pip squeaked.
“No sir!” cried Bados. “That’s a crocodile! They got them in Barbados, too. We need be taking ourselves back the way we come!”
“Where’s that musket?” Will cried. “We’ll put an end to that monster!”
“No!” Mary said sharply. “’Twould be a waste of ammunition. For, dead or alive, there may be others! We’ll not stay the night here with such beasts as this about.”
“Turn round!” Bados begged again, his voice hoarse with terror. “A crocodile takes a place to be his own, he won’t think twice to come after us!”
“Fine by me!” Scrapper yelped. “This whole bleedin’ place is givin’ me the willies!”
He dug an oar into the water to bring the boat about, and the others, without waiting for a command from Will, did the same. Once turned around, the rowers pulled hard for only a moment, then eased off and let the current carry them swiftly back the way they had come.
Mary dipped a hand into the water, tasted it and, finding it sweet, began to scoop up fresh water to refill their containers. Will, although he was not at the oars, declined to help. Plainly in a snit over having been countermanded by his wife, he lapsed into moody silence.
Matey clapped him on the back. “Doubt you could’ve taken him with one shot anyway, Cap’n. Was one croc I knowed of in Africa that got to grabbing natives when they went down to the river for water. They asked a Frenchman what had a gun to come and kill it. He told me later that the first three shots barely fazed it. ‘Course he got it in the end, and I helped him skin it. When we got a look at the hide, you could see why it wasn’t easy for a musket ball to sink in. Like a kind of armour is the hide of them beasts.” Matey paused, and added in an awed voice, “And the one I skinned wasn’t near the size of the one back there.”
As they approached the sea, Mary called back to Bados. “What more do you know of these creatures, Bados? Will we be safe on the beach, or ought we to travel on, away from the river’s mouth?”
“Them we have in Barbados, they live in murky places like back yonder. But I tell you same as Matey, I never in my life seen one so big as that. The ones we got at home, they more the size of a man. That one, why, he be long as any three.”
They floated in silence for another minute, then Bados spoke again. “They make a track, a smooth-like place where they drag that big tail. We might get ourselves some little way up the beach from this river, then look around for tracks, to know if it’s common for them to come down to the beach. Them back home, though, they don’t do that.”
“Once we find a likely looking beach out in the open,” Luke put in, “Bados and me can scout the area for tracks.”
They did find a safe place further along the beach, although none truly felt assured of safety, even after Luke set up a line of snares at the edge of the forest to catch anything that might come creeping out to molest them in their sleep. “Ain’t nothing I got that can hold one of them monsters,” Luke admitted. “But if one gets snared, it might thrash about in breaking free enough to wake us.”
They all agreed that that was a reasonable plan and, nervous though they were, made a show of normalcy. The men went off to fish and hunt, except for James, whom Mary sent to gather firewood, and Pip, who was now regularly assigned the job of tending the children when they were on land. Charlotte, after being long confined in the boat, had a great need to run about, and little Emanuel, when he wasn’t creeping across the sand, liked to walk upright with someone holding his hands.
Luke soon returned, but with only a single small animal he deemed edible. He went off down the beach to see what luck the fishers were having, and Mary set to chopping the flesh of the animal into small pieces to add flavour to the day’s soup. James returned with an armload of wood, and came near to Mary to lay a fire.
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br /> Any keen observer with an understanding of human nature would have guessed that these two were in love, not by longing looks sent to each other—for there were none—nor by the time they spent together, since they approached one another only when the task at hand required it. Rather, it would have been apparent from the way they avoided each other’s eyes. When they were in close proximity, their movements became stiff and guarded, as if not trusting their own bodies to keep the secret of their hearts.
However, no one else was about, so James, as he arranged the wood and put flint spark to the kindling, spoke to Mary. “When you were at the quadrant, I saw that we have likely crossed over the Tropic of Capricorn.”
“I am quite sure of that,” Mary confirmed.
“And your chart shows Kupang to be only ten degrees south of the Equator.” James glanced up at her for confirmation.
“That’s right,” Mary nodded, for by now she had a map of their route well established in her mind.
“Then it is as Matey said: we have reached the tropics. I venture to say that the rest of our journey from here to there will be in this clime, and with vegetation such as we encountered today.”
Mary glanced toward him with a wry smile. “And with creatures such as that monster we saw today? Was it your intention to comfort me with such knowledge, James?”
James laughed. “Not knowledge, Mary. Just a guess, based on books I read when I was a boy back in Canada. I had a fascination with the tropics and hoped some day to visit.” His smile faded, and he added, “But of course, with no notion then of the circumstances that would bring me here.”
“Do you regret coming with us?” she asked, stopping her work long enough to look directly at him.
“Coming with you,” he said quietly, “is one of the few things in recent years that I shall never regret.” With that, he rose and moved away.
They sailed north for many more days, past white sand beaches lined with swaying palms and grey sand beaches interrupted by rocky outcroppings. Sometimes there was no beach, just mangrove swamps swarming with insects which tormented them even on the boat. As they were now sailing between the coast and a string of offshore islands, the sea itself was turquoise and smooth. Its transparent quality made it easy to see the coral, providing one’s eyes were focussed on what lay just ahead of the boat, and were straining to see beneath the surface every minute. As Mary’s were, day after day. At times images rose up in her mind, most often of Colleen, Dr. White, and other friends she had left back in Botany Bay. Soon, though, she found that she could not allow the images to linger, but must keep her mind empty of thought. For when memories filled her inner vision, she could not sense the coral, or see the subtle change in the colour of the water which forewarned her that coral lay in their path.
