The Devil's Eye (6 page)

The whaleboat pulled Maggie Porter, Alice Field Porter and poor Tommy de Lange across the glassy sea towards the
Crest of the Wave.
There was hardly a goodbye from the
Admiral
, where Perez and the crew were busy making sure of its anchorage.

The
Admiral
shared Bathurst Bay with the three other, larger schooners of the Clark pearling fleets: the
Crest of the Wave
, the
Sagitta
and the
Silvery Wave.

The setting sun showed their masts and shrouds pink against the towering black rocks of the cape. It might have been a glorious sight, but Maggie was apprehensive. She could see Captain Porter at the railing with his spyglass on her and she smiled for him. But of course she couldn’t see his expression.

Tommy smoked and fidgeted, but the crossing was smooth, the wind having again died to nothing as they glided into the bay from behind Flinders Island.

A net was lowered for the trunks, and strong, sure hands passed Alice up from the boat and she vanished
above the bulwarks. Maggie rejected the hands and climbed the rope herself, to step, with as much dignity as she could muster, onto the deck of the
Crest of the Wave.

Her husband stood in front of her holding Alice, who had her arms around her father’s neck. Maggie noticed that his beard needed trimming, but he had on a clean white shirt and pants, as if he was dressed for dinner.

‘So you
were
expecting us, William,’ she said. ‘I was beginning to wonder.’

‘Maggie,’ he said. ‘What the devil are you doing here?’

The sea, Maggie had been told by William’s father on her wedding day, was as good a nursery as it was a grave, as if this was a good recommendation to a captain’s new wife and potential mother. But it was true: the water in the bilge and the rhythmic creaking of the hull and the ropes were more soothing than any cradle and lullaby.

‘She’s asleep now,’ said Maggie, looking down on Alice in the cot that had been made especially for her, in the main cabin.

‘There’ll be a land breeze towards morning,’ said Porter, struggling with his tie in front of the mirror. ‘The trouble with being behind the cape is that the wind dies every damned evening.’

Maggie put a hand to Alice’s hot and slick forehead. The baby wore a nappy only and her skin was shining, her hair matted, but she appeared content.

Alice slept, even when Porter yelled, ‘Damn,’ and threw the tie down. Maggie picked it up.

‘You don’t have to come, you know,’ he said.

‘You said that Captain Murray insisted.’

‘And you’d think he was expecting Melba.’

‘Instead of someone who’s just your wife.’

‘There,’ he said. ‘You are your father’s daughter. They will all try to charm you and you’ll snap their heads off.’

She slapped him on the shoulder, but he was looking over her head and probably didn’t feel it. ‘And they’ll make you drink some god-awful champagne,’ he said.

‘I’ll stay here then.’ She tugged viciously at his collar.

‘No. I want you to come. It’s not that.’ But he didn’t say what it was.

‘Done,’ she said, standing back, the tie tied.

Captain Porter was a conspicuous consumer of space even on deck, but in the cabin he displaced all the air and Maggie found it hard to breathe.

‘Let’s go up.’ She was annoyed now and just wanted the night over with, but Porter grabbed her by the arm.

‘Maggie. Tell me the real reason why you came?’

‘To be with you.’ She felt like crying, then, and cursed herself for being such a fool.

‘After all that song and dance between you and your father,’ he said, ‘here you are.’

She nodded.

‘Well, what did you tell him?’

‘I told him I wanted to be with you,’ she said. ‘And that I’m going to go down to Cooktown to visit Hope.’

He looked at her steadily. ‘You’re going to Cooktown …to persuade Hope to go home, aren’t you?’

‘Of course I am. It’s all so childish, William. Cooktown’s not the place for Hope, and Father needs her.’ She put a hand on her stomach. ‘So do I.’

‘You should both damn well listen to your father.’

‘If I did, I would not be here,’ she said, and she leant into his chest. She felt his arms go around her and she bit her lip trying to hold back the tears.

‘Damn it, Maggie, you do know, don’t you, that you make all the other captains nervous.’

‘You mean that my father makes them nervous.’

She stood back from him and admired his solid form. There was great comfort in being in his presence, she thought, and she was absolutely certain at that moment that this really was where she wanted to be.

‘He is the one who approves their licences,’ Porter was saying, putting on his coat. ‘He’s the one who sits in court when their cargoes are seized on some trumped-up political charge, or when their crews complain that they’re being treated like slaves. He’s the Government Resident, for God’s sake, and everyone
knows
he doesn’t want you down here.’

‘Do you want me down here?’

He drew in a deep breath. ‘Of course I do.’

But none of the other wives lived with their husbands when the fleets went to sea. They all retired to their verandahs and played cards.

She said, slowly, firmly, ‘You are my husband.’

His shoulders slumped and he reached for her hand. ‘And your father will never forgive me for it.’

The sun held a pale-blue enamel lid over Cape Melville, and around the luggers the sea boiled. With the helmet outlet valve fully open, Willie Tanna had sunk slowly. Diving in the great suit was a sensation he never got used to; a confusion of senses a caged bird might feel if it was dropped in its cage from a cliff. Now a trail of bubbles beside the
Zoe
marked his march along the sea floor.

It was Willie’s idea of freedom to be confined in this fat grey suit and tethered like a dog to the lugger above. He was alone with his thoughts, which, apart from the occasional nagging tug on the line, were uninterrupted by Sam.

He wore stockings and a woollen jumper, partly to keep out the cold and partly to cushion the pressure. At this depth, the suit was so tight it could cut off the blood to his arms and legs.

The day before, he’d barely been able to see his own feet. The water today was clearer and had a lightness; it
fairly skipped over the bottom. He looked down between his legs and saw the current kicking up small eddies. With every step a cloud of silt rose around his leaden boots and streamed away in front of him.

The sea floor was opaque, but he could see at least twenty feet around him before it vanished into a grey-green haze.

To his right was a mound of shell grit and sand, with a field of seagrass on the other side, and a forest of coral around which fish flew like flocks of gaudy birds.

The
whoosh
of the air pump and the happy escape of the bubbles played a brisk tune as he walked, tilted slightly forward by the current pushing at his back. He simply had to follow the current, the lugger would follow him, and the world would take care of itself.

Willie Tanna had been a pearler since he arrived on Thursday Island one steamy March day in 1892. He’d stumbled off the deck of the
Roderick Dhu
into a colourful confusion of languages and faces. He never quite believed such a place could exist, that there could be so many people in one place, or that their skins could be so different, one from the other. Not one was even related to another.

He longed to explore the shining silver village of corrugated huts and strange smells, but he’d hardly stepped ashore when he found himself back on the water, in a lugger. He didn’t return until paying-off time.

He’d signed for a year, but had ended the year in debt to the slop chest. The temptations of gin and tobacco, sweets and tinned meat were too much for any Tanna boy to resist.

He spent the next year paying it off, and the next paying for the pleasures of the previous year, and so on. He had a reputation for working hard and was never seen rolling drunk.

One lay-up, when he had hardly enough money to buy a drink and had to hang around the wharves for work, Mr James Clark himself gave him some white leghorns to take up to the Residence. It was Hope Douglas who had asked him to build the chicken coop, and then found odd jobs in the garden for which he was given a meal outside the kitchen.

The next pearling season he was taught to dive, and when the
Zoe
’s diver was pulled dead from the Darnley Deeps, he was made skipper.

Willie was not a greedy man. If he had an ambition it was to continue diving, and one day, perhaps, to own his own lugger so that no one could tell him what to do.

The devil in his ear, though, was Sam Motlop.

Willie bent down on one knee, scooping up a dull flat oyster shell the size of a dinner plate and putting it into his bag. Perhaps it contained Sam’s pearl.

He had ten shells, a poor haul. Willie could
feel
Sam’s chiding through the lifeline, as now. ‘Come up.’

Willie signalled, ‘Wait.’

‘Squall.’

Willie looked up, alarmed. The dull bottom of the lugger hardly moved. The light was bright and played across the sea’s surface, pierced here and there by the sun in bright columns of motes. All seemed peaceful.

Willie sent the signal back, ‘Squall?’

There was a long pause.

Again the signal was ‘Come up,’ and before Willie could adjust the valve, he was jerked from the seabed, his boots trailing two streams of mud.

He was rising too fast and signalled ‘Stop.’ After a couple of jerks he did stop.

He hung there between the lugger and the sea floor, spinning slowly and breathing hard.

Then he saw it. The crocodile’s tail propelled it forward with lazy sweeps. Willie had never before seen a crocodile from below. It had tucked its small legs into its body and it swam towards the
Zoe.

Willie tried to keep his eyes on it, but he was spinning. It appeared to be as long as the boat. Had a crocodile ever eaten a diver? He was sure Sam must have mentioned it.

It came closer. Willie spun, a baited hook.

He couldn’t believe the crocodile would attack the boat. Perhaps it was blind. Even if it did see the lugger, it might not see his lifeline and the air hose. Willie’s heart beat faster as he imagined a tangle.

He reached around for the outlet valve. The crocodile was now fifty feet away and he could see its rough hide.

Willie depressed the valve and a stream of bubbles burst from the helmet.

With one sweep of its immense tail, the crocodile changed course to inspect the sudden movement.

Willie, in a panic, tugged at the lifeline and to his horror was pulled into the crocodile’s path.

It considered him with cold, hooded eyes and a casual display of teeth.

In that intimate moment, Willie saw himself as a foolish, grey jellyfish. The crocodile now appeared to be simply bored and with a turn of the head, it dived. Willie watched it descend into the gloom and felt shamed. The crocodile had dignity. He, a warrior from Tanna Island, was dragged backwards, out of the water onto the deck.

Sam’s head appeared at the face plate and he was speaking before he unscrewed it. ‘…I told you.’

Willie blinked.

‘Didn’t you see it?’ asked Sam.

‘The squall?’

‘I signalled
crocodile.
Remember? Two pulls and two shakes.’

Willie was shivering. His leg cramped, and he thumped it with a fist.

‘It was right in front of you,’ said Sam.

‘You pulled me up too fast.’

Sam looked into Willie’s face with concern now. He and Charley dragged Willie, dripping, across the deck and propped him up against the hatch.

‘Don’t move.’

The crew had dropped the main anchor to stop the lugger drifting away from the patch as the tide rushed north.

Sam returned with coffee.

It scalded Willie’s throat, but couldn’t warm his bones.

The pain in his legs, though, subsided and he noticed that the sea around them was full of sails, as other luggers and cutters dashed for some vantage point in the dying afternoon breeze.

‘Let’s make another pass,’ said Willie.

‘Too late,’ said Sam, who looked worn from worry. ‘Let’s give it a rest.’

‘There’s more shell and it’ll be light enough for another half-hour on the bottom.’

Sam looked around and scratched his head.

Far to the east, on the horizon, there was a line of cloud or thick haze with a slight crimp in it.

Willie did go over the side again, after Sam swore that if the crocodile came back he’d pop it with the carbine. He made a show of putting the rifle against the mast.

Willie told him not to shoot anything at all while he was down—blood in the water was sure to attract crocodiles, or sharks, or Joe Harry.

‘I’m not scared of Joe Harry,’ said Sam.

‘I’m the one in the water,’ said Willie, and the face plate went on. Back he plunged.

Maggie had never been separated from Alice by more than a ship’s length, even when they lived ashore.

Now, she sat beside her husband in the whaleboat, watching the thin thread of their phosphorescent wake detach itself from the
Crest of the Wave.
Already halfway to the
Sagitta
, the night seemed full of deadly potential. The over-ripe moon couldn’t reveal anything more than the outline of those black mountains behind the bay.

‘Alice snores like a sailor,’ said Porter. ‘I can hear her from here.’

‘You cannot.’

‘Poor bloody Tommy’s on watch,’ said Porter, and then added quickly, ‘and Daniel will be back there in fifteen minutes, won’t you, Daniel?’

At the oars Daniel Jones, a South American negro as black as the mountains, said, ‘Nothing can happen to little Miss Alice.’

‘The crew adores her,’ said Porter.

‘I know.’

What was the source of her fear? She searched her heart, and found the unborn child, and Alice, her father, and Hope. The threads of these lives had somehow become entangled and Maggie felt she was the only one who could pick her way through. Her plan to bring Hope home would unravel the knot.

Maggie could hear voices, the concertina again from the
Admiral
, a night bird on the land, an islander singing.

‘It’s so still,’ she said.

‘Flat as the pond at Mangatangi,’ said Porter. He rapped his knuckle twice against the gunwale. Porter had nearly drowned as a boy trying to sail a bathtub, and this was what passed as a joke with him.

Maggie had heard the story many times and said again, ritually, ‘Bathtubs are for baths.’

‘Damned right.’

They watched the
Sagitta
loom above them, a carnival of light.

‘Christ,’ he said. ‘What are they thinking?’

She saw the now-dark outline of the
Crest of the Wave
far away, knowing but not believing that Alice was safely surrounded by an armed crew and a benign sea. She tucked an arm under Porter’s, though, reassuring him that she’d been reassured.

And she was happy. Really. How could she not be happy now that she had her husband, with a tropical night encasing her and the lights of the
Sagitta
dancing around them above and below the water?

Porter then leaned close and said in her ear, ‘But what do you think of Tommy’s news, Maggie?’

‘The pearl?’

‘Oh, damn those pearls. No, I mean his father drowned in New Guinea. Poor bloody Tommy.’

A hand reached down to her, she took it and was pulled through the air to land standing on the deck. Robert Murray, captain of the
Sagitta
, gave Maggie a tight smile and welcomed her aboard. She stepped forward and her husband was beside her being slapped on the back, whisky materialising in his hand.

Maggie knew most of these men, her husband’s colleagues, regular visitors to the
Crest of the Wave
and the hotels of Port Kennedy, and sometimes to the Residence.

‘No need for introductions,’ said Murray, a Scot, who introduced the men anyway. ‘Alfred Outridge. You know Alf.’

She knew Alf quite well; had stayed with his brother’s family at New Farm in Brisbane on her way back from New Zealand with Alice. Alfred Outridge was a managing partner of Clark’s Sagitta Pearling Company and had joined the fleet for the season. He was a neat man in his late thirties with wet eyes and a dry wit. She shook his hand and was about to say something when Murray said, ‘Right, and you must know young Harold Outridge, my supercargo. And
this is his friend Mr Edward Atthow from the
Silvery Wave
and his friend Mr John Nicholas.’

Harold, Edward, and John were of the same species of young men: clean-shaven and indistinguishable. They nodded to her as one.

Murray continued: ‘Captain Jefferson from the
Silvery Wave
.’

Maggie took a step towards Jeff, who nodded and took a step back. ‘Marcos Perez from the
Admiral
. Almost a white man, eh?’

Had Murray even noticed that she’d arrived by way of the
Admiral
only hours before? ‘And the captain of the
Channel Rocks Lightship
has honoured us with his company this evening as well. For some reason. Mr Fuhrman.’

‘Gustaf,’ said Fuhrman, taking Maggie’s hand. ‘Very pleasant to see you.’ She thought he might be about to kiss it in some European way, but Captain Murray took her hand back and put a glass in it.

‘Champagne,’ he said. ‘It’s been bobbing at four fathoms since morning. Lost two bottles at five.’

‘I’m very grateful.’

‘Ten shillings a bottle.’

‘Worth every penny, I’m sure.’

‘You know that Maggie doesn’t drink, Robert,’ said Porter from behind her.

‘Nonsense,’ said Murray.

The deck of the
Sagitta
was smaller, busier than that of the
Crest of the Wave.
It was strewn with coils of rope and although as neatly cluttered as the deck of any working schooner, it was in every way inferior to her husband’s.

The crew had gone to considerable trouble, though, and all the Britishers as well as Perez and Fuhrman now stood with drinks in their hands or hands behind their backs smiling and nodding, begging her to exclaim her amazement at the state of the vessel.

Maggie looked around and said, ‘The lights. And the deck. It smells like…’

‘Lavender water.’

‘I’m amazed,’ she said, which seemed to do the trick. The men broke away into pairs to talk and Porter was at her side.

‘Relax,’ he ordered. ‘You’re scaring them.’

‘I’ve said nothing.’

‘It’s the way you stand.’

‘The way I stand?’ Maggie looked down at her feet, which seemed perfectly spaced in sensible shoes.

‘I mean, you…’ and Porter seemed to be struggling to describe the way Maggie stood—‘you lean towards them.’

Maggie didn’t know how to answer this. Perhaps she did have a habit of facing the person she was talking to, of taking an interest in what was said, and yes, of
leaning
and even expressing an opinion, if asked.

‘Oh, for God’s sake Maggie, don’t tell anyone what you
think
,’ her husband said, before stalking off to the knit of captains.

Maggie bit her lip and turned away.

She could see the
Crest of the Wave
as a shadow and her ears strained for the sound of Alice’s cry. She knew the rhythm of the fleets well enough, having lived aboard her husband’s schooner until her pregnancy with Alice showed and she was packed off to Auckland.

It seemed quiet, even for a weekday night, with just a few luggers in the bay to unload shell or for repairs, or to water. There were none of the loud spontaneous eruptions of music that occurred on weekends when every member of every fleet gathered to explain themselves to the schooner masters and unload shell.

This evening was oppressive and the concertina had exhausted itself, but a zither was playing somewhere in the dark. The Kanaka resumed his song.

‘What is that?’ she wondered aloud.

Behind her she heard the lightship captain say, ‘I believe he is a heathen savage. Poor fellow.’

Fuhrman and the three young men were standing uncomfortably together with nothing to say. At least, they had nothing to say in Maggie’s presence.

So she asked, ‘Are all savages heathens?’

Fuhrman looked at her in surprise. ‘Of course they are.’

‘Well, some of them appear to be very fervent
heathens,’ said Maggie. ‘But many of them try to be Mohammedans or Christians.’

‘Aye,’ said Murray, overhearing. ‘It’s a case of ye are what ye eat,’ and the roar of laughter finally came.

Alfred Outridge came to Maggie’s side and said, ‘It’s a Rotumah song. I’ve heard the tune many times.’

The Kanaka’s voice was strong and clear, and cut through the chatter.

‘I wonder what it means,’ said Maggie, trying not to lean forward.

‘Oh well,’ said Alf. ‘As for that…’ He listened for a while. The young men were silent with mouths open a little as if expecting a joke.

Alf said, ‘I believe the words are, let’s see, “The kiap he shouts at us and says: You are ignorant. But can he shape a canoe, tie a mast, fix an outrigger? Can he steer a canoe through the night without losing his way? Does he know when a turtle comes ashore to lay its eggs?”’

The men seemed disappointed.

‘I can steer at night,’ said Fuhrman. ‘But what would I do with turtle eggs?’

‘They’re singing about us,’ said Edward. ‘The cheeky buggers.’

Maggie heard her husband say, ‘Oh, Maggie’s father sent a note. The police say that some boys have been speared ashore.’

‘Nonsense,’ said Murray. ‘None of mine. Where?’

‘Vicinity of Cape Melville. A week or so ago.’

‘Well, then it’s poppycock. We’d have heard by now if any crew were missing.’

‘Yes, of course. Both Indians, apparently. One’s called Thomas.’

‘Well, I doubt there’s any truth in it at all. All sorts of stories do the rounds, but no one can ever say who the fellow is or who he belongs to or the name of his boat. It’s always someone who told someone else. Rubbish.’

‘I dare say you’re right,’ said Porter, and the conversation turned inevitably to business, Murray declaring himself loudly for a White Australia, of course he was, but where would the pearlshell industry, the cane industry, the backbone of the colonies, be without alien labour.

They spoke of the rising price of shell in London, the late arrival of the southerly trades, the catch and the repair of their luggers; it was all part of the same conversation to Maggie because it was part of what was one absorbing parcel to the pearlers.

Maggie, ignored again, stared out into the night.

She could see the lights of the
Crest of the Wave
where Alice was sleeping in her cot, but a few feet from the cot and for a hundred miles in all directions there was only brooding wilderness.

It occurred to her that the lights and the somewhat forced laughter were all there was between these people and the empty land at their backs; a short stretch of sea between civilisation and savagery.

It seemed that somewhere ashore two men had been speared. Her father hadn’t mentioned it to her; he’d simply handed her the note for her husband. He had known that it would not have stopped her leaving. But she realised now how vulnerable life was here. She placed a hand on her stomach and shivered.

She’d seen a map somewhere of Cape York, the tip painted black all the way from Cooktown to Torres Strait; an unknown, mysterious finger of land. That’s where she was now, between those two outposts of civilisation. Perhaps her husband was right; she always leant too far forward.

Maggie looked up. There was a halo around the waning moon and she imagined herself up there looking down to see herself as a tiny white figure on a splinter of wood beneath a galaxy of lanterns that could be extinguished if there was the mere puff of a breeze.

Maggie became aware again of the group of young men and Captain Fuhrman nearby. Fuhrman now appeared to be lecturing young Harold Outridge, who was showing polite interest.

‘The shells carpet the seabed,’ said Fuhrman. ‘You should send your luggers there,’ and he stabbed the night over their heads with a finger.

Harold said, ‘How do you know?’

‘He showed me a map. It had the name of
Meg Merrilees
.’

‘Bowden sent a lugger over here?’

‘No, no. A cutter. This fellow is not after shell, but he knows where the shell is. Where the luggers are working.’

Harold and Edward looked at each other. ‘He must be Bowden’s pearl buyer,’ said Harold. ‘Snooping around.’

‘Yes. He asked me if I had any pearls he could buy. I said, where would I get a pearl he would want to buy? They were all rubbish around here. But then he showed me one. Not rubbish. Not baroque. A big round pearl. Big as my thumbnail,’ and he showed them his thumb.

Harold whistled. Maggie looked around. Murray had cornered her husband by the deckhouse.

‘Did he say where he got it?’ said Maggie.

Fuhrman looked annoyed. ‘Of course not.’

They were silent for a while. Harold asked her, ‘Have the
Crest of the Wave
luggers turned up any pearls, Mrs Porter?’

‘I’ve only just arrived,’ replied Maggie.

‘But you came down with Tommy de Lange. He knows the pearl business.’

It seemed everyone knew about Tommy’s secret interest. ‘Has the
Sagitta
found any pearls lately?’ she asked.

‘Oh, they don’t tell me, Mrs Porter. You’d have to ask Uncle Alf.’

Fuhrman said, ‘The divers pocket most pearls.’

They all stared at Fuhrman as if he’d said something tactless.

Harold said to Maggie, in a low voice, ‘The pearls we find on the schooners are just a fraction of what’s really found. That’s why Bowden’s sending someone around the luggers this season, to buy them up first.’

‘Those devils,’ said Fuhrman.

‘Imagine how many pearls we don’t get.’

Fuhrman said, ‘You can’t imagine a number that you don’t know.’

They fell silent, no doubt imagining pearls without number.

‘Who showed you the pearl at the lightship? The one you mentioned earlier,’ Harold asked Fuhrman.

‘Never says his name. Sometimes he waits for a steamer.’

‘White man?’

Fuhrman shook his head. ‘Coloured.’

Fuhrman gazed back towards the beacon of his lightship, a fixed white light that hovered in the dark shipping channel. He suddenly took a tomato from his pocket and offered it to Maggie.

‘You can buy anything you wish from steamers today,’ he said. ‘I have a dozen pumpkins.’

Maggie shook her head and he put the tomato back.

‘You don’t drink,’ he said, ‘but you still hold a glass.’

‘It’s ten shillings a bottle,’ she said.

‘I don’t drink either,’ Fuhrman said, draining his glass, holding it up and smiling at her.

Harold said, ‘Do they bring newspapers?’

‘Who?’ asked Fuhrman.

‘The steamers.’

‘I drown in newspapers.’

Harold said, ‘What’s the news in the world then?’

Fuhrman closed his eyes. ‘I believe Mr Rudyard Kipling’s condition is very grave and there is no hope of recovery.’ He held up a finger. ‘And the insurgent leaders in the Philippines have promised to free all prisoners and exterminate the Americans.’