Call It Courage

by Armstrong Sperry

  The canoe was at the lagoon’s edge. The boy fell upon the thwart, shoved the craft into the water. The logs under the stem rolled easily. In that second, the black men, yelling wildly, broke from the jungle and dashed across the beach. Mafatu was not a minute too soon. He leaped aboard and ran up the sail. The savages rushed after him into the shallows. A gust of wind filled the sail. It drew smartly. Now the men were swimming. One of them, in the lead, reached to lay hold of the outrigger. His black hand clutched the purau pole. The canoe slacked. Mafatu could see the gleam of bared teeth. The boy lifted the paddle and cracked it down. … With a groan the man dropped back into the water. The canoe, freed, skimmed out toward the barrier reef.

  The savages stopped, turned back toward shore. Then they were running back to the trail that led across the island, shouting to their fellows as they ran. Mafatu knew that it was only a question of minutes until the whole pack would be aroused and in pursuit. But he had the advantage of a headstart and a light craft, while their canoes would have to beat around the southern point of the island before they could catch up with him. If only the breeze held. … Mafatu remembered then that the canoes he had seen drawn up on the beach had not been sailing canoes. There were strong arms to propel those black canoes, to overtake him if they could.

  Mafatu’s canoe, so slim and light, sped like a zephyr across the lagoon. The tide was on the ebb, churning in its race through the passage into the outer ocean. The boy gripped the steering paddle and offered up a prayer. Then he was caught in the riptide. The outrigger dashed through the passage, a chip on a torrent. The wind of the open sea rushed to greet it. The sail filled; the outrigger heeled over. Mafatu scrambled to windward to lend his weight for ballast. He was off! Homeward, homeward. …

  Soon, rising above the reef thunder, the boy could hear a measured sound of savage chanting. They were after him!

  Looking back over his shoulder, he could see the dark shapes of the canoes rounding the southern headland. Moonlight shone on half a hundred wet paddles as they dipped and rose to the rhythm of the chant. It was too dark to see the eaters-of-men themselves, but their wild song grew ever more savage as they advanced.

  The breeze was almost dead aft. The crab-claw sail swelled smooth and taut, rigid as a block of silver against the sky. The little canoe, so artfully built, ran with swell and favoring wind, laying knots behind her. She was as fleet and gracile as the following gulls. But the eaters-of-men were strong paddlers with death in their hearts. Their motu tabu had been profaned by a stranger. Vengeance powered their muscles. They were tireless. On they came.

  The wind dropped. Imperceptibly at first. Sensing it, Mafatu whistled desperately for Maui. “Maui é! Do not desert me,” he prayed. “This last time—lend me your help.”

  Soon the black canoes were so close that the boy could see the shine of dark bodies, the glint of teeth, and flash of ornament. If the wind died, he was lost. … Closer, closer the canoes advanced. There were six of them, filled each with ten warriors. Some of them leaped to their feet, brandished their clubs, shouted at the boy across the water. They were a sight to quake the stoutest heart. With every second they were cutting down the distance which separated their canoes from Mafatu’s.

  Then the wind freshened. Just a puff, but enough. Under its impetus the little canoe skimmed ahead while the boy’s heart gave an upward surge of thanks. Maui had heard his prayer and answered.

  Day broke over the wide Pacific.

  There were the six black canoes, paddles flashing, now gaining, now losing. The boy was employing every art and wile of sailing that he knew. As long as the wind held he was safe. He managed his little craft to perfection, drawing from it every grace of speed in flight.

  He knew that with coming night the wind might drop, and then— He forced the thought from his mind. If the wind deserted him it would mean that Maui had deserted him too. But the savages would never get him! It would be Moana, the Sea God’s turn. The boy looked down into the blue depths overside and his smile was grim: “Not yet, Moana,” he muttered fiercely. “You haven’t won. Not yet.”

  But with falling night the wind still held. Darkness rose up from the sea, enveloping the world. The stars came out clear and bright. The boy searched among them for some familiar constellation to steer by. Should it be Mata Iki—Little Eyes? Would Mata Iki lead him back safe to Hikueru? And then he saw, and knew: there, blazing bravely, were the three stars of the Fishhook of Maui. Maui—his sign. Those were his stars to steer by. They would lead him home. In that moment he was aware that the chanting of his pursuers had become fainter, steadily diminishing. At first he could not believe it. He listened intently. Yes—there was no doubt about it: as the breeze freshened, the sound grew fainter each passing moment.

  The boy quenched his thirst, ate a scrap of poi, fought against sleep as the night waxed and waned.

  By daybreak the chanting had ceased altogether. There was no sign of the canoes upon the broad expanse of the sea. The sunburst marched across the swingling waters. Far off an albatross caught the light of gold on its wings. Was it Kivi? Mafatu could not tell. The wind held fresh and fair. The high island had vanished over the curve of the sea and the eaters-of-men had vanished with it. But now the great ocean current that had carried Mafatu so willingly away from Hikueru was set dead against him.

  He put his little craft first on one tack, then on another. As the long hours passed, it seemed as if he were making no headway at all, even though the canoe still cut smartly through the water. There was a drift and pull that appeared to make a forward gain impossible. Was it Moana, the implacable one, trying to prevent Mafatu from returning to his homeland?

  “Perhaps,” the boy thought wearily, “Maui is not yet ready for me to return. Is there still a shadow of fear in my heart? Is that it?” He was tired now in every nerve and sinew, tired in the marrow of his bones, tired of struggle.

  The long hours passed slowly while the sun climbed. Mafatu lashed the steering paddle and slept fitfully. Uri lay in the shadow of the sail. The sun sank in a conflagration like the death of a world. Night came and fled. Dawn rose in a burst of flame, and still Mafatu’s canoe skimmed across the sea currents, now on this tack, now on that.

  He was to learn in the hours to come that all days, all time, would be like that: hours of blasting heat, of shattering sunlight; nights of fitful respite and uneasy sleep. Only the sea and the sky, the sea and the sky. A bird now and then, a fish leaping from the sea, a boy in a frail canoe. That was all.

  As one day dragged into another, Mafatu scanned the heavens for some hint of rain. Storm, anything would have been a welcome relief to this blasting monotony, to this limitless circle of sea. His store of poi vanished. The coconuts likewise. His water was being guarded, drop by drop. But there would come a moment when the last drop must be taken, and then. …

  The season of storm was long past. The days, as they came, were cloudless and untroubled. Each day broke like a clap of thunder and night fell softly as a footfall. The sea was sparkling and benign. The sun’s rays were unbroken in their violence. At night the Fishhook of Maui twinkled down like friendly eyes, luring Mafatu on; and torch-fishes darted up from the lower depths while the black waters gleamed with strange lights. Then gradually as the canoe entered some other current of the sea, the wind slackened and diminished, this wind that had blown for him so long. Now the sail began to slat and bang in the dead air. The canoe drifted on the slow, majestic tide. The ceaseless heave and surge of the sea’s dark breast lulled the boy to half-sleeping rest; the murmur of the waters playing about the prow sounded like his mother’s reassuring voice.

  Each sun as it rose seemed hotter than that of the preceding day. Now the face of the ocean was a disk of blazing copper. Masses of seaweed, heavy with the eggs of fishes, floated on the sluggish tide, seeming to clutch at the canoe, to hold it back from its destination. Hikueru, the Cloud of Islands—did they really exist? Were they not, like the chambered nautilus, only an iridescence dre
amed by the sea? Sharks were beginning to appear—as they did always about a craft becalmed. One dorsal fin, larger than the others, followed the canoe in leisurely parallel; just far enough distant so that Mafatu could not see the body that supported it. But he knew from the size of the dorsal that it must be a tiger-shark. … It began at length to play upon his nerves and set him jumpy. He scarcely dared now, at night, to lash his steering paddle and sleep.

  The sail slatted and banged. The boy paddled through the long hours, paddled until the muscles of his arms and shoulders ached in agony and every sinew cried in protest. And at night, when darkness brought blessed release from the sun, there was always the Fishhook of Maui leading him on. But now when the boy looked up at the ancient constellation, doubt lay heavy on his heart. Hikueru—where was it? Where was it? The sea gave back no answer.

  “Maui,” the boy whispered, “have you deserted me? Have you looked into my heart and found me wanting?”

  And suddenly, like the snapping of a string, he was overwhelmed with despair. Maui had deserted him. It was Moana, the Sea God’s turn. The sea looked dark and cool and inviting. Little wavelets lapped and chuckled about the hull like beckoning hands. He looked overside. Deep down in those cool depths it seemed to him that he could see faces . . . his mother’s, perhaps. … He dashed his hand across his eyes. Had the sun stricken him daft? Had he been touched by moon-madness? Then a wave of overpowering anger brought him to his knees: anger at this dark element, this sea, which would destroy him if it could. His voice was thick and hoarse, his throat bursting with rage.

  “Moana, you Sea God!” he shouted violently. “You! You destroyed my mother. Always you have tried to destroy me. Fear of you has haunted my sleep. Fear of you turned my people against me. But now—” he choked; his hands gripped his throat to stop its hot burning, “now I no longer fear you, Sea!” His voice rose to a wild note. He sprang to his feet, flung back his head, spread wide his arms in defiance. “Do you hear me, Moana? I am not afraid of you! Destroy me—but I laugh at you. Do you hear? I laugh!”

  His voice, cracked but triumphant, shattered the dead air. He sank back on his haunches, shaking with spasms of ragged laughter. It racked his body, left him spent and gasping on the floor of the canoe. Uri, whimpering softly, crept to his master’s side.

  Off to the northeast a haze of light glowed up from the sea. Sometimes the lagoon of an atoll throws up just such a glow. It is the reflection of the lagoon upon the lower sky. Lifting his head, the boy watched it with dulled eyes, uncomprehending at first.

  “Te mori,” he whispered at last, his voice a thread of awe. “The lagoon fire.”

  There came a whir and fury in the sky above, a beat of mighty wings: an albatross, edged with light, circled above the canoe. It swooped low, its gentle, questing eyes turned upon the boy and his dog. Then the bird lifted in its effortless flight, flew straight ahead and vanished into the lagoon fire. And then Mafatu knew. Hikueru, his homeland, lay ahead. Kivi. …

  A strangled cry broke from the boy. He shut his eyes tight and there was a taste of salt, wet upon his lips.

  The crowd assembled upon the beach watched the small canoe slip through the reef passage. It was a fine canoe, artfully built. The people thought at first that it was empty. Silence gripped them, and a chill of awe touched them like a cold hand. Then they saw a head lift above the gunwale, a thin body struggle to sit upright, clinging to the mid-thwart.

  “Aué te aué!” The cry went up from the people in a vast sigh. So they might speak if the sea should give up its dead.

  But the boy who dropped overside into the shallows and staggered up the beach was flesh and blood, albeit wasted and thin. They saw that a necklace of boar’s teeth shone upon his chest; a splendid spear flashed in his hand. Tavana Nui, the Great Chief of Hikueru, went forward to greet the stranger. The brave young figure halted, drew itself upright.

  “My father,” Mafatu cried thickly, “I have come home.”

  The Great Chief’s face was transformed with joy. This brave figure, so thin and straight, with the fine necklace and the flashing spear and courage blazing from his eyes—his son? The man could only stand and stare and stare, as if he could not believe his senses. And then a small yellow dog pulled himself over the gunwale of the canoe, fell at his master’s feet. Uri. … Far overhead an albatross caught a light of gold on its wings. Then Tavana Nui turned to his people and cried: “Here is my son come home from the sea. Mafatu, Stout Heart. A brave name for a brave boy!”

  Mafatu swayed where he stood. “My father, I. …”

  Tavana Nui caught his son as he fell.

  It happened many years ago, before the traders and missionaries first came into the South Seas, while the Polynesians were still great in numbers and fierce of heart. But even today the people of Hikueru sing this story in their chants and tell it over the evening fires.