02 South Sea Adventure (20 page)

Hal tried to say something but sleep closed over him like a cloud.

When he woke the shadows were long. It must be late afternoon. His eyes roved over the peaceful village. There was no street; the houses were scattered among the trees.

And what trees! He had noticed the mango trees before. Now he picked out breadfruit, banana, orange, lemon, coconut, fig, papaya, and mulberry trees. All of them were heavy with fruit.

Orchids of many colours clung to the trunks and branches. Bougainvillaea, hibiscus, and convolvulus were in bloom.

There were moving colours too - the red-and-green of flitting parakeets, the rose-grey of doves, the metallic blue of kingfishers. And there were tame little birds that fluttered around doorways as if they were the familiar friends of the people inside. On their tiny coats nature had found room for six colours - red, green, black, white, blue, and yellow.

The whole wood gave out a contented chuckle of bird sounds. Mingled with this music was the soft murmur of voices in the thatch houses, and, from somewhere, singing to the accompaniment of guitars.

He turned towards Roger and Omo. They were awake and sitting up, entranced as he was by sight and sound.

Roger expressed it as usual in noble prose. ‘Boy oh boy!’ he murmured. ‘Isn’t this the cat’s!’ ‘Let’s not pinch ourselves,’ Hal said. ‘We might wake up and find it isn’t true.’

There was a chatter of voices inside the house. Then several girls and women came out with shells of water and bowls of food which they placed before the castaways -baked fish and yams, roast pigeon, creamy poi, and a great basket of fruit of more than a dozen varieties.

The chief came to sit with them as they ate. His kindly old face beamed. ‘Where are we?’ asked Hal. ‘This is Ruac. One of the islands of Truk.’ Truk, the paradise of the South seas! Hal had heard much about it. It was a vast lagoon surrounded by a reef one hundred and forty miles long. Within the lagoon were two hundred and forty-five islands. ‘Is this island inside the lagoon?’

‘No, it is on the reef. The ocean is yonder, and the lagoon is on the other side.’

‘Are there any navy men here?’

‘On the main island, yes. I went there this morning to report. They wished to come to see you at once. But I asked permission to care for you until tomorrow morning. They said you were reported missing from Ponape. If you wish, they will put you aboard the U.S.S. Whidbey which leaves tomorrow for Ponape and the Marshalls. It is a hospital ship - you will have good care.’ He smiled. ‘I have said what I was told to say. Now I shall speak for myself. We wish you to stay with us for many, many days and let us be your father and mother, your brothers and sisters.’ Hal could hardly keep back the tears. ‘We can never forget your kindness,’ he said. ‘But we must go. We have much important business in Ponape.’

The next morning an outrigger canoe bore the derelicts across the fabulous lagoon of Truk. The lagoon was circular and forty miles across. Upon every side rose lovely islands, dozens upon dozens of them. Some of them stood up like towers and minarets, clothed from sea to summit with breadfruit and banana trees, coconut palms, scarlet bougainvillaea and crimson hibiscus, brilliant against the deep blue South Sea sky.

Some islands sloped up gently from sand beaches. Others rose abruptly in steep cliffs. Five of the islands climbed to peaks more than a thousand feet high.

Some islands were large. Tol was ten miles long, Moer five miles. Dublon, headquarters for the navy, was three miles across. There were islands of all sizes, down to half an acre or less.

And below, what a pageant! The lagoon floor was a garden of coral and algae, of sea fan and oarweed, of bright blue sea moss and red sea cucumbers, of ultra-marine starfish and of swimming fish in all the colours of the rainbow. There were corals like sponges and sponges like corals. There were green sponges, geranium-scarlet sponges, marigold-yellow sponges.

‘It wouldn’t annoy me to stay around here and sail on this lagoon for ever,’ Hal remarked.

But an hour later on the U.S.S. Whidbey they sailed out of the lagoon through Northeast Pass and looked back regretfully to the lovely island of Ruac. They could see their friends on the beach waving to the departing steamer. Hal climbed to the bridge and spoke to Commander Bob Terence. ‘Would you mind whistling goodbye to those people?’ The commander grinned and opened the whistle valve in three long blasts of farewell.

The Whidbey was a floating hospital. It was equipped with an X-ray, a fluoroscope, a pharmacy, and laboratory. Its business was to cruise from island to island, healing the

sick and training native nurses.

Of most interest to the boys were cool clean beds with white sheets. They did little but rest and eat. A skilful naval doctor treated their salt-water sores and sunburn. He pronounced Omo’s wound to be nearly healed.

When Hal thought of Kaggs whose bullet had caused Omo so much suffering and who had left them all to live or die on a barren reef, his blood boiled and he could hardly wait to get his hands on the murderous pearl trader.

‘I’ll thrash him to within an inch of his life!’ he vowed.

The commander radioed Ponape that the boys had been found and were coming on the Whidbey.

After three days of peaceful sailing the great Rock of Chokach was sighted and the Whidbey steamed into the island-studded harbour of Ponape. No sooner had the anchor been dropped than a launch came alongside and Commander Tom Brady and other officers climbed aboard.

Brady searched out Hal at once and began to ply him with questions.

‘Where were you? What happened? What made you stay on the reef? Why didn’t you come back in the boat?

Hal laughed. ‘One thing at a time. In the first place - did Kaggs come back?’

‘Kaggs? Who’s Kaggs?’

‘Oh, I forgot. You know him as the Reverend Archibald Jones.’

‘Jones was picked up by a fishing boat He was stark staring mad. He had lost his way. His provisions and water had run out and he had been drinking sea water. It made him as crazy as a loon. It was days before we could get any sense out of him. We asked him about you. He said you had decided to stay on the island until he got back.’

‘That wasn’t quite the way of it,’ Hal put in. ‘He shot Omo, then abandoned us without provisions and skipped off in the boat. We could die there for all he cared. He wasn’t a missionary - he’s a pearl trader and his name is Merlin Kaggs. There’s a bed of pearls up there and he’s out to steal it.’

Brady stared. ‘I always thought there was something screwy about his missionary talk.’ Is he here now?’

‘No. He got a larger boat and some men and sailed again. We thought he was going to get you. So imagine our surprise when we got word you were wrecked on Truk.’ ‘How long has he been gone?’

‘About a week. He wouldn’t say when he was coming back. He talked wild - claimed he was going to dig up the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. He was still ninety per cent nuts. The men were almost afraid to go with him, he acted so strangely. He went about with a logbook clutched to his chest and wouldn’t let anybody look in it.

Began to foam at the mouth if anyone so much as touched it He wouldn’t tell us where he was going. Said it was a secret island and he had the bearings. He took along a native who has had training in navigation. So he’ll get there all right.’

‘Hell never get there,’ Hal said. Brady looked at him inquiringly but Hal did not explain his remark. ‘I hope he comes back soon. He’ll find me waiting for him with a meat axe.’

Brady grinned. ‘I know how you feel, but go easy with the meat axe. There’s a prison sentence waiting for the Reverend Archibald Jones.’

But both Hal and Brady were wrong. Kaggs would escape the meat axe and he was not to go to prison. Something rather worse had already happened to him.

The boys moved in with Captain Ike in the same house to which they had been assigned when they had first come to Ponape. The captain reported that the repairs on the Lively Lady had been completed.

‘She’s shipshape and rarin’ to go.’

‘And how are the animals?’

‘All in fine fettle. In fact, the octopus was feeling a bit too frisky. He got out of his tank and climbed the rigging. I had to call in a gang of natives to help me get him back in his tank.’

Hal sent a long radiogram to his father. And on the first plane flying east he dispatched a small but heavily insured package addressed to Professor Richard Stuyvesant.

He breathed more easily when the pearls were at last out of his hands.

Hal inquired about Crab, the young sailor who had tried to steal his secret and who had been clapped in jail for likkering up the natives. Crab was still in jail. Hal thought that he had been punished enough. He went to see Brady who, as deputy governor of the island, had authority to release the prisoner.

Crab was set free. He did not bother to thank Hal or Brady, but lost no time in signing on as a sailor on the next ship out.

Hal waited anxiously for some word of Kaggs. Since the pearl trader had the wrong bearings it should be impossible for him to find Pearl Lagoon. Should be. But suppose he had found it in spite of all! Suppose his men were even now at work diving in the bay of pearls. Suppose Kaggs wiped the bay clean of all its precious store. Then he would sail away with the treasure. He would not come back to Ponape. Not finding the boys on the reef, nor their skeletons, he would guess that they had escaped and might have returned to Ponape. So he would give Ponape a wide berth. He would sail away with his fortune to parts unknown.

And then what could Hal say to Professor Richard Stuyvesant? He would have to admit that it was his fault. He had been fooled by the crook, had even taken him along as a passenger to the secret island! Imagine taking in a thief and showing him just where your money was hidden!

‘What a dope I was!’ The words drummed in Hal’s mind over and over as he tossed sleeplessly on the Japanese mats of the house above the harbour.

When the sun rose he went down to the docks. A strange craft was just dropping anchor a hundred yards out. Several brown men and one white stepped into a dinghy and rowed towards shore.

Hal strained his eyes. Was he only hoping it, or was it true? The white man was Kaggs!

Hal’s heart began to beat like a trip-hammer. Now would come the reckoning. Kaggs must answer now for his evil tricks.

The pearl trader doubtless toted a gun. Hal had no gun. He did wear a knife, but had no intention of using it. His fists would have to do. He was seventy pounds lighter than the trader’ and several inches shorter. Never mind - a tiger is smaller than an elephant, but the tiger wins. He felt the muscles tensing like steel wires in his arms.

Kaggs stepped out on the dock. He walked unsteadily. His mouth hung open and his eyes stared. His unshaved black beard increased his wild appearance. His uncombed hair hung like a mat around his ears. The hunch in his back was more pronounced. He looked like a deformed giant. His great arms hung like cargo booms from his forward-thrust shoulders.

Hal stood in his way. Kaggs stopped.

‘Hello, Kaggs,’ Hal said. ‘Remember me?’

Hal expected to see a hand slip up to the shoulder holster where he knew Kaggs carried his gun. Before it got halfway Hal would strike first. He would land a crashing blow on that wobbly jaw and another in the solar plexus.

But the big fellow’s arms continued to hang. He stared vacantly at Hal. Failing to recognize him, he turned out of his way and staggered off along the dock, muttering meaningless words as he went.

One of the men from the boat had stopped beside Hal. He held a sextant in his hand. He must be the navigator.

‘Completely out of his head,’ he said, looking after Kaggs.

‘What happened?’ Hal asked.

‘The crazy fool had some bearings in a logbook. He said they were the bearings of an island where there was a fortune in pearls. When we got to the position there was no island there at all. He was already badly touched in the head, but that made it worse. He just cracked to pieces. He wanted to hunt for the island but we had had enough of sailing around with a raving maniac hunting for islands that don’t exist. We brought him back.’

There was a commotion at the shore end of the dock and Hal turned to see the cause of it. Kaggs was roaring and struggling in the grip of two military police. He was led away, babbling vacantly. Hal could almost feel sorry for the devil who had left him and his companions to die on a Pacific reef.

Kaggs was taken not to jail, but to the hospital. On an early plane he would be deported to San Francisco, there to be consigned to a mental institution.

Hal told himself that he should be happy over the way things had worked out. He had a good collection of specimens to take home, the pearling venture had been successful, their lives had been saved, and their enemy defeated.

But he felt strangely let down. He had not had the pleasure of punching Kaggs in the jaw. He could not take any delight in the terrible punishment the sea had meted out to his enemy. He shuddered to think how near he and Roger and Omo had come to losing their minds during the drift of the ill-fated raft. He would not wish such a fate upon anybody.

But he had another reason for low spirits. The great adventure was over. When he was on the island or on the raft he would have given anything to be done with it all. But now that it was all done, he was lost. He felt like an employee who has just been fired from his job. Nobody needed him any more. He was being laid on the shelf.

It was too bad that he must turn his back upon the South Seas. He had seen just enough of its wonders to want to see more.

And what gave him most pain was that he would have to part with Omo. Omo had already been looking about for a schooner headed for his home island of Raiatea.

Hal knew that Omo was as sad as he himself was over the coming separation. Roger, Omo, Hal, they were three brothers, and it was a pity to have to break up their alliance.

Gloomily, he walked up into the town. He stopped at the radio station. There was a radiogram for him. He opened it eagerly. It was from his father.