It was a long note headed Seal and Codfish at the end of the chapter on Newfoundland, and a few pages back there were illustrations of both the seal and the codfish designs. It confirmed that the die for the Jeens seal had been engraved in London by Perkins Bacon, probably for the banknotes first, and this die was presumably stored there in 1862, when the thief was discovered.
I was still reading when Tubby went on, ‘Well, there you are, Roy. That’s the mystery that has puzzled all the experts ever since the results of Percy de Worms’s painstaking research into the Perkins Bacon files and letter books was published. On the face of it these two volumes appear quite straightforward, a fascinating, but very mundane day-to-day record of correspondence, meticulously copied and filed away by the Perkins Bacon clerks. We know how many stamps they printed of every colonial issue, how many they dispatched, every detail of the advice they gave on design, paper, ink, gum, perforation, how the sheets were to be preserved in transit, all their costings. And then, in the midst of a protracted battle with the Crown Agents, that laconic statement that there was a thief in the print shop. No details, nothing – just the bald declaration to excuse a delay. As de Worms says, a strange admission for a firm of security printers to make.’ And he added, raising his glass to us with a slightly wry smile, ‘Here’s to you and the Solomons Seal collection. We’ll have some idea of what other experts think when the bidding starts on Thursday for Lots Ninety-six and Ninety-seven.’
The auction was still a full day away, so that Perenna and I had two nights together at Great Park Hall before driving across country to Birmingham. Keegan had given us copies of the catalogue, and I looked through it that evening. The first seventy-two lots were GBs, including some very good Seahorse issues and, of course, the block of four £5 orange. Lots 73–95 were collections of GB and Commonwealth stamps; then came the Carlos Holland ship label design collection, followed by the Solomons Seal sheet. There were estimates of what each lot was expected to fetch, but not against ours, the blank at the right of the page making them very conspicuous. Presuming the lots were disposed of at about the same rate as at Harmers or other London auction houses, Lots 96 and 97 would come up sometime around 3–3.30 p.m. It was sensible timing since the wealthier dealers, who might have come down specially for those two lots, would have plenty of time for lunch, and if the Carlos Holland collection fetched about £5,000, which is what Keegan had originally suggested, how much, I wondered, would the full sheet fetch?
We talked it over during the evening meal, finally settling for a figure of £10,000 for the two lots. Afterwards I showed Perenna my own collection. Keegan, knowing roughly its contents and quality, had said it could fetch somewhere between £2,500 and £3,000 in view of the high prices now being paid at auction for second-rate material. But sending it to auction meant a delay of three months at least, and the same was true probably of Perenna’s wood carvings. What we needed was cash, now.
Wednesday I spent a miserable day arranging the termination of my lease of the Hall and the sale of my boat, having first delivered Perenna to the nursing home near Colchester. When I picked her up in the evening, our moods were very different – where I was depressed, she was buoyant, bubbling over with the extraordinary progress Tim had made. ‘It’s unbelievable. And not at all gradual. It happened just like that, quite suddenly he was a different man. They can’t understand it. The matron even phoned the doctor so that I could have a word with him. He couldn’t explain it either.’
It had been one of those glorious, still October days, and I still had the hood down, so that we had to shout at each other to make ourselves heard. ‘So what do you think? That the curse was lifted?’
‘Yes, of course. But I couldn’t tell them that.’
‘When did he snap out of it?’
‘August fifth. You’re thinking of Hans, are you?’
I nodded, glancing at her quickly sitting there beside me with the red-orange hair blowing in the wind. I was remembering the log book and Jona’s neat entry recording his death and the burial of his ashes in the cove to the north of Madehas. The date had been July 30.
‘It wasn’t Hans who put that curse on Tim,’ she shouted into the wind. ‘It was Sapuru. Sapuru died on August fifth. Remember? And Tagup, remember what Tagup said that evening he came to say goodbye to us at the motel? He said Sapuru could have been killed by an old curse, one that his weakened vitality was no longer able to resist. Tim spent weeks fashioning things out of driftwood and all sorts of bits and pieces I scavenged for him off the seashore. He’d sit for hours staring at them, his lips moving. He knows all about sorcery.’ And she added, ‘Funny, isn’t it? Sapuru puts a curse on Tim after he’d discovered what the Co-operative was planning. But it wasn’t strong enough, and in the end it’s Tim’s curse that kills Sapuru.’ She laughed, not humorously, but a little wildly. ‘You don’t believe me, do you? But it’s true, I tell you. It fits. It must be true. The only possible explanation. Oh, my God – how little this civilised world remembers or understands.’ She put her hand on my arm, a quick, urgent gesture. ‘Forget it, will you? Please. You don’t have to believe it. I see you don’t, so forget it. And when you meet Tim, don’t ever let him know what I said. Please.’
That night we fell into bed still arguing about the future and whether we shouldn’t just give up, forget about the Holland Line and that battered old LCT. No point in destroying ourselves and losing everything we had for the sake of a ship. It was pride, too, of course. But I think both of us had by then come back down to earth and knew bloody well we couldn’t make a go of it on the sort of capital we could hope to raise. The cost of ship repairs alone was such that the first major breakdown would see us broke.
We fell asleep in the end through sheer exhaustion. The next morning we were up with the dawn and on our way by eight. The auction was being held in what appeared to be an old corn exchange. Two doves, left over from a Fur and Feather Exhibition, fluttered noisily through the ornamental iron roof girders. I was tired; I had had no lunch and had lost my way on the outskirts of Birmingham. We were asked whether we would be bidding, and when I said no, we were ushered to the stairs leading to a sort of gallery. But then Keegan saw us and waved us over to seats on the right of the auctioneer’s dais. ‘Reserved specially for you, dear lady,’ he said, taking Perenna by the arm. ‘You see, hardly a seat left except those we have reserved.’ He seized two glasses of champagne from a loaded tray on a nearby table and thrust them into our hands. ‘Drink that and don’t worry. We’ll be starting any minute now.’
There must have been about 150 to 200 seats in this partitioned-off section of the hall. All those who were bidding had been issued with a large numbered card and a drink. The murmur of conversation was already loud. We had only a few minutes to absorb the atmosphere of the place before the auction started, prompt on 1.30. Keegan was sitting a few feet from us. The auctioneer, a smiling, slightly florid man with a habit of pushing his glasses up into his thick greying hair, was seated on a tall chair with a desk in front of him on the dais. ‘Lot One, gentlemen please – ladies and gentlemen.’ He had a strong Midlands accent. ‘Lot Number One. I am bid eighty pounds – a hundred, a hundred and twenty, forty, sixty, two hundred – two-twenty? Going for two hundred.’
I began timing the bids: just over a minute for each lot. Prices seemed high, but then I hadn’t attended an auction for more than two years. By two o’clock every seat was taken and we had reached Lot 22. I was beginning to identify the more active dealers and the different nationalities – German, Japanese, French, Italian. Berners was there, sitting very still, not bidding. ‘I can’t follow it,’ Perenna whispered. ‘It’s so fast. And I can’t see who’s bidding half the time. A nod or a slight lift of the pen—’
‘Just concentrate on the final bid figure given by the auctioneer,’ I said, showing her my catalogue with the final bid entered on the right. In almost every case it was way above the estimate, in the case of a perfect block of six 1870 Three Halfpenc
e over twice the estimate.
‘Why didn’t he put an estimate against our lots?’
‘He couldn’t. It wouldn’t have meant anything.’
One of Keegan’s staff, an elderly woman, was standing close beside the auctioneer. For most of the lots it was she who started the bidding. Keegan had a big mail order business. So probably had the Birmingham firm he had taken over. These were the postal bids. We reached the first of the Wyon embossed of 1847–54, an assistant displaying a single Die 2 of the 1s. deep green in mint condition. ‘Starting at four-fifty– five, five-fifty, six, six-fifty, seven – seven I’m bid, seven hundred, seven-twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, sixty– seven-sixty. At seven-sixty.’ The little ivory knocker fell. I was waiting now for the £5 block. The estimate was £3,800. It made £5,500. ‘Lot Seventy-three—’ We had reached the collections. They went equally fast. At 3.27 the auctioneer announced, ‘Now we come to the Lot many of you have been waiting for – Lot Ninety-six …’ And he glanced across at Keegan, who jumped to his feet.
‘I think I must say a word about this Lot and also the next Lot.’ He was speaking quickly, a little nervously. ‘We offer them both as seen, of course, with no guarantee that they are what we all think they probably are. I don’t have to tell you, but I will’ – a ripple of laughter that was more a release of tension ran round the enclosed area – ‘how Perkins Bacon excused their dilatoriness in delivering stamps and moulds to the Crown Agents. There was a thief in their print shop, and as Percy de Worms said, that’s a strange admission for a firm of security printers accustomed to holding banknotes and bonds. They didn’t say what he stole. It was an age when property was sacrosanct, so they probably felt they had said too much already. And now—’ He waved his hand to the assistant who was holding up the two albums, the vital one open at one of the die proof pages. ‘Now, you have this Solomons Seal ship label. You have examined it and taken the same view that I have, that this is the Jeens engraving for the five-cent Newfoundland popped into the 1854 Western Australia Penny Black Frame – otherwise you wouldn’t be here. May I simply add this, the Holland Line, for which that label was printed, is still in existence, and Miss Holland herself is here today. The two albums, originally the property of her great-uncle, Carlos Holland, are now her property, and she is selling them to provide additional finance for the Holland Line, which she now runs with her brother and Mr Slingsby here.’
He looked so distinguished, such a born showman as he asked us both to rise, that I half expected them to applaud. And then he called for Lot 97 to be displayed, adding, ‘And this is the finished label, printed from a plate cast from those borrowed dies – I say borrowed because we can’t be sure the thief stole them. Also, we do not know what happened to the plate, whether it was thrown away or melted down, or even whether it is still in existence somewhere. I can, however, assure you that this is the only surviving sheet, the others having been destroyed in a fire at a house on the island of Madehas in the Solomons. Both Miss Holland and Mr Slingsby witnessed the fire, and it was Mr Slingsby who managed to preserve this – the one and only sheet. And as regards the fire, its cause and what it destroyed, he has made a sworn statement before a judicial enquiry set up by the Papua New Guinea government to probe the cause of an insurrection on the island of Bougainville. So, here you have it, something unique in the history of stamp collecting, something that can never be repeated, with a background story of extraordinary fascination and excitement, and all of it supported by sworn testimony, which is in itself most unusual. I now leave it to you to decide what these two valuable items are really worth. Thank you.’ And he sat down abruptly, the silence suddenly electric.
‘Lot Ninety-six.’ The quiet monotone of the auctioneer’s voice seemed very ordinary and matter-of-fact after Keegan’s flamboyant piece of tub-thumping. ‘The Carlos Holland design collection, including the die proofs, at five thousand pounds I’m bid. Six anybody? Thank you, seven, eight, nine, ten – ten thousand – eleven, twelve.’ The auction area was very still. One of the doves flew over with a noisy clapping of wings. ‘Twelve thousand.’
‘And a hundred.’ It was Berners’s voice, and the bidding started again, going up first by hundreds, then by fifties. At thirteen thousand seven hundred there was a sudden silence in the hall, no movement anywhere. ‘At thirteen seven hundred then …’ The hand holding the knocker was poised for a moment, then fell. Carlos Holland’s albums – the proof of his murder of a whole ship’s company including his one-time partner – had gone to a German dealer.
‘Lot Ninety-seven. The only remaining sheet of the Solomons Seal blue ship label. Starting at five thousand pounds again – six, thank you, seven, eight, nine, ten …’ And it didn’t even pause there; it went straight on up to fifteen thousand in a matter of seconds. It was as though everybody there had been seized with a feverish determination to outbid everyone else for this second item in the Holland collection. ‘And five hundred? Thank you – sixteen, and five, seventeen—’ Suddenly there was a silence, a wary stillness where they all waited, wondering whether it was too much, the bidding too wild.
A card was raised. It was Berners. ‘And two-fifty,’ he said in his sharp, rather acid voice.
‘Seventeen two-fifty, seventeen thousand two-fifty, I’m bid … ’ The knocker was poised. ‘Five hundred, seven-fifty, eighteen thousand – and a hundred? Thank you …’ The bidding crawled upwards, then came to an abrupt halt with Berners jumping several hundreds to nineteen thousand. The auctioneer waited, his eyes searching the room. ‘At nineteen thousand pounds – to Mr Berners.’ The knocker fell, the sound of it sharp in the stillness.
Perenna and I looked at each other, smiling. In less than ten minutes, allowing for commission, everything, we had raised some £30,000. It was fantastic. Keegan was suddenly standing in front of Perenna congratulating her, and she was so excited she leapt to her feet and threw her arms round his neck. We went out then to the little office at the back, where Keegan produced a bottle of champagne. And after that we drove slowly back through the late afternoon sunshine, stopping at an hotel near Cambridge to linger over dinner, discussing all the various possibilities now that we had the capital we needed. It didn’t matter now whether it was the PNG government or a Lloyd’s syndicate that finally established prior claim on the LCT, we could afford to buy it, and with the ship as security we could raise the loan as and when we needed it.
That evening, back at the hall, we walked beside the moat hand-in-hand in the moonlight, still talking it over, dreaming dreams of ships and islands, a world I think we both knew in our hearts would take a deal of sweat and blood to translate into reality. And then Perenna suddenly stopped and turned and faced me, holding my hand tight as she said, ‘That day you left Bougainville – remember what you said as you walked out to the plane?’
‘What?’ I asked, teasingly.
‘You know bloody well.’
I nodded, laughing and lifting her off her feet, carrying her in my arms. ‘For tonight,’ I said, ‘you’ll just have to be content with this.’ I was kissing her as I carried her across the threshold. ‘Tomorrow I’ll think about making an honest woman of you.’ We were both of us laughing as we went up to bed. The moon was very bright that night and there were owls hooting – Bougainville and the Pacific seemed a million miles away, and so did reality. What fun life is! What a glorious everlasting struggle to survive and to build something worthwhile! And as I fell asleep, I was thinking of that indomitable old man, her grandfather, sailing out in his canoe towards the horizon and infinity.
Author’s Note
I have written of Bougainville, and of the Highlands of Papua New Guinea, as I found them on the journeys my wife and I made in 1975. At that time the islands of Bougainville and Buka, though geographically a northern extension of the Solomon Islands group, were administratively a part of Papua New Guinea. This situation has not changed as a result of independence, which came later that same year. But the form of the internal government has chang
ed. Where, before independence, the country was divided into thirteen administrative districts, there are now nineteen provincial governments, each with an elected chamber and a small staff. Port Moresby, the capital, also has provincial government status.
This change is political, intended to meet the needs of a people isolated by a very mountainous terrain and as a result speaking a multiplicity of languages and patois.
In the case of Bougainville District, the new title of North Solomons Provincial Government gives recognition to the anomalous geographical situation, but the islands have a record of civic disruption, on occasions quite serious, and whether this administrative change will be sufficient to satisfy the political aspirations of the people only time will tell. The training and educational facilities provided by the copper mine, the generally progressive policy of the management, will inevitably over the years have a profound effect upon an island people who, until World War II, had very little contact with the outside world. This, and the wealth generated locally, will make for a changing political climate, something the central government in Port Moresby, 600 miles away, will increasingly need to take into account.
Apart from the very considerable assistance I had in Bougainville and Buka, I was fortunate in the guidance I received with regard to the Solomons Seal ship label, and in particular the cancellations at Port Moresby and Cooktown. It was reasonable that I should turn to Tony Rigo de Righi, the Curator of the National Postal Museum, for expert vetting of the very strange idea I had conceived based on one of the letters in the Perkins Bacon Records, but then to find that he was a collector of Australian postal history – this was totally unexpected. There can be very few people in the world who could have given me not only details of the date stamps used at Port Moresby and Cooktown, but also the mail boat routes and sailing schedules. I am deeply grateful for his help and for his kindness in checking the stamp references and putting me right on certain points. Also for the information that, quite fortuitously, a man named Solomon happened to be Postmaster in Newfoundland in the period immediately prior to the issue of the Seal-on-Icefloe stamp.
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