The Persimmon Tree (12 page)

The Dutchman had made the correct decision. I wouldn’t have wanted anyone, male or female, to go through the past nearly twenty-four hours, let alone someone I loved and cherished with my whole heart. I could feel a lump in my throat and a heaviness growing in my chest just from thinking about the effect on her mind, had she been with me. It would be something she would never forget; the stuff of nightmares for the remainder of her life, as I fully expected it would be of mine.

Dawn, when it came, was a smudgy affair; low clouds scudded across a dirty red horizon and the squalls continued. I snuffed out the binnacle lantern as I could see the compass card clearly by now. We were picking up speed to what I estimated was about five knots. In a lighter craft I might have shortened sail, but heading downwind in a sea flattened by the effect of the landmasses Sumatra and Java behind me, I felt confident she could carry the increased speed.
Madam Butterfly
(
hey, it’s working!
) was heeling less than I had expected, a tribute to her solid displacement, although I’m not sure that the two words ‘solid displacement’ were ones that should be used when referring to a beautiful woman. It was a bit like saying that Anna, the future Madam Butterfly, was gorgeous except for her enormous bum. Which wasn’t true. Anna had a simply lovely bottom, which had fitted perfectly into my lap when I’d so lamentably disgraced myself.

Madam Butterfly
was tracking beautifully and had settled into a rhythm. Her low gaff rig meant the tiller needed almost no input from me. I experimented with lashing it and leaving it to see if the boat would hold her course and was pleased to see she kept cutting through the water. After experimenting with various positions I discovered that securing the tiller slightly to starboard kept her sailing on course.

It was time for breakfast and a chance to stretch my legs. The cockpit was small — about three feet deep and about as wide as two coffins — and even with the cushion I’d earlier placed on the grate my body felt stiff and my bones ached. I rose and opened the sliding hatch, placing the washboards on the companionway. I then slid the hatch forward, hopped over the washboards, onto the companionway ladder and went below and into the galley, lighting the little stove and placing the kettle on it. A cup of hot sweet tea, a bowl of rice with maybe half a teaspoon of curry powder added and a bit of fish and I knew I’d feel a whole heap better. I would have killed for a couple of hours’ sleep but it was a luxury I couldn’t yet afford. I’d have to be a lot further out into the Indian Ocean and beyond the possibility of a marauding Japanese warship before I’d dare to take a bit of shut-eye.

I turned from the stove to see the little bloke, wrapped in a blanket, standing at the entrance to the forward cabin staring at me.

I quickly examined the blanket for signs of seasickness but couldn’t see any. ‘Morning,’ I said, trying to keep my voice casual, not sure what version of K. Judge was about to confront me.

‘Who are you?’ he demanded.

‘You don’t remember?’ I asked.

‘Nah.’

‘Nick Duncan,’ I said, once again introducing myself.

He looked around, confused. ‘Where the fuck am I, sonny boy?’ ‘Sonny boy’ was back, although I didn’t know if this was a good or a bad thing.

‘You call me Nick and I’ll call you Kevin, okay?’ The lack of sleep was beginning to show.

‘How ya know my name?’ he demanded, thankfully eliminating the ‘sonny boy’ epithet. Without waiting for a reply he stabbed his finger at me. ‘So, I’m gonna ask you again, where the fuck am I?’

‘Where are you? You’re approximately fifteen nautical miles into the Indian Ocean, going south. What exactly do you remember, Mr Judge?’

He ignored my question and countered, ‘Am I taken prisoner?’ He touched the bandage on his head. ‘You do this?’

‘No to both questions,’ I replied. ‘Now, tell me what do you remember?’

‘The
Houston
, we’re takin’ a poundin’. The Japs are giving us hell. I ain’t no fuckin’ hero, you unnerstan’?’

‘Well, your ship went down. You don’t remember that?’

‘Nah.’

‘And nothing since that time?’

‘I jus tol’ you, sonny boy!’

‘Nick! It’s Nick,’ I said, growing increasingly impatient. I sighed and shrugged my shoulders and looked him in the eye. ‘Kevin, mate, I’m the big bloke and you’re the little one. What say I throw you overboard? Nobody will ever know and I’ll be rid of a rude, aggressive little shit I’m doing my best to rescue from the Japs. Now, don’t you
ever
call me sonny boy again!’ I pointed to the seat opposite the galley, a small pin-cushioned leather settee. ‘If you shut up and sit down, I’ll make you a cup of tea and bring you up to date with your plight —
our
plight. Orright? How many sugars?’

‘I ain’t got no clothes,’ he replied, sulky at the reproof but unwilling to challenge me.

‘They’re on the spare bunk,’ I said, calming down. ‘I’ve washed them but they’re probably still a bit stiff from the oil.’

‘Oil?’

‘Get changed and I’ll bring you up to date,’ I said, attempting unsuccessfully to smile.

‘I gotta take a piss! How I gonna do that?’

I pointed to the companionway. ‘Up on deck, mate. And hang on tight, it’s pretty squally. Leave the blanket, you don’t want it to get wet.’

He unwrapped the blanket from his scrawny little body and to my surprise folded it neatly and placed it on the pilot berth and then scrambled up the companionway.

‘Not into the wind!’ I shouted after him. A version of K. Judge wearing the contents of his bladder was all I needed to further sour the day.

That was one problem solved. He was sufficiently hydrated to pass urine although I knew the first piss after so long would hurt like hell. A burning urinary tract might give him something else to think about. It seemed the little bloke, in adult form anyway, didn’t know any other way to behave but be aggressive. The flat lump of dough that passed for his nose suggested he’d paid a fairly heavy price in the process of maintaining his bellicosity.

I’m usually fairly easygoing and slow to anger; butterfly collectors have to be or they find themselves too frequently in pointless scraps proving they’re not poofters. I’d also been awake for thirty-two hours, my nerves were shot and I’d just about had enough ‘sonny boy’ bullshit together with the various manifestations of K. Judge. On any other day I might have been more tolerant. After all, he’d taken a bad knock to the head and was probably suffering a headache two Aspro every once in a while was not going to fix. Besides, he was most likely still concussed.

However, I didn’t believe he was hallucinating any longer. He was seeing me crystal clear. What I was facing was a cantankerous little shit who’d just had the benefit of eighteen hours of sleep. It was my further misfortune that he didn’t appear to suffer from seasickness, the effect of which would have kept him preoccupied and out of harm’s way.

I placed two teaspoons of tea into the red anodised teapot and added sufficient water for just two cups, as little water as possible onto as little tea as possible in order to make the strongest possible brew for two, the cautionary habits of a long-distance sailor. I’d asked him how many sugars and he hadn’t replied. By way of a silent apology for my returned rudeness, I added three teaspoons, a luxury I decided I could only afford to indulge him with the once.

He returned down the companionway wet from the rain and I pointed to a towel hanging from a hook. ‘How’s your wound?’ I asked.

‘Don’t feel too bad,’ he replied.

‘Throbbing?’

‘Nah.’

‘Headache?’ He nodded, starting to dry himself. ‘I’ll give you a couple of Aspro, it’s all I’ve got, I’m afraid.’ I reached up into the first-aid locker and retrieved the bottle.

‘Gimme four,’ he demanded, replacing the towel on its hook.

‘No, two’s enough. Four’s too much.’ I handed him two tablets and drew him half a mug of water. He swallowed the pills but didn’t thank me. ‘Your clobber is on the spare bunk.’

‘Clobber?’

‘Clothes.’

He returned a short while later just as I was pouring the tea. Now dressed in shirt and shorts he grinned at me. ‘Say, Nick, I wanna apologise. I bin a regular asshole. Whaddya say we go back and start again, eh, buddy?’

‘That’s a fair way back to cordiality,’ I replied, still a trifle miffed and in my mind not yet prepared to reconcile his sudden change in attitude. I wondered briefly if ‘buddy’ was going to be the new ‘sonny boy’ and thought to pull him up right away but decided to let it pass. It was an epithet common enough among Yank soldiers and didn’t have the patronising ring to it of the other one. I handed him the cup of sweet tea. ‘Here, get this into you. Three sugars, special treat.’

He took the mug, held it in his left hand and extended his right. ‘Kevin Judge, US Navy, Chicago, Illinois.’ He paused. ‘Nah, let me repeat that. Kevin Judge, asshole, first class.’

I grinned and then took his hand, his grip surprisingly firm for a little bloke. ‘Pleased to meet the real Kevin Judge at last,’ I laughed.

‘I guess I had that comin’,’ he chuckled in return, then looked suddenly serious. ‘I wanna thank ya for takin’ care o’ me, Nick.’

‘That’s okay, mate. I reckon you were pretty badly concussed.’ I pointed to the leather settee. ‘Sit down and tell me how much you remember.’

He sat, holding his cup between his legs, and shook his head ruefully. ‘What a bitch, man! I guess I been outa my sensibility. I don’t remember nuttin’ since them Japs opened up. There’s smoke and shit flying every which way and me, I’m thinkin’ I’m gonna die. Any moment now da Judge… he is gonna be dead, man!’ He looked at me and, grinning, repeated, ‘I ain’t no fuckin’ hero, you hear? Big fuckin’ battleship, got steel reinforce six inches! But the
Houston
she’s takin’ a poundin’ like we’s a matchbox caught in a fuckin’ storm drain! There’re explosions and bodies flying everywhere — this leg, it ain’t got no body attached, sonofabitch still got his boot on, and it lands right next ter me where I’m hiding behind a hatch cover! Then, boom! I don’t remember nuttin’ no more!’

‘Okay, I’m going to dress your head wound and while I do so I’ll try to fill in the gaps.’ I undid the bandage and the cotton wool, using another piece soaked in water to remove the bits sticking to the ugly gash. The wound hadn’t festered and appeared to be clean. ‘It needs stitches. I’m afraid you’re going to wear the scar it leaves as a badge of honour.’

The little bloke grinned. ‘I ain’t got no honour gettin’ it, man. I was shittin’ my britches behin’ that there hatch cover.’

I laughed. ‘Purple heart, mate, that’s the least they can do.’ I doused the wound with fresh iodine and applied a new bandage as the one he was wearing was wet from going out into the rain. I’d wash this one later, as I only possessed one other.

I started to tell him what had happened, first making the assumption that he was picked up by the nine survivors of HMAS
Perth
,
and continuing from there. I completed the dressing and kept talking in some detail. I told him about seeing the Carley float battling through the reef and then how, once ashore, the Australians had carried him up the beach, one of them removing and laying down his shirt before they placed him under the shade of a bush.

‘That’s a mighty fine thing,’ Kevin said, shaking his head. ‘From now on, they’re me brothers; I owe them big time, no mistake!’ He looked at me curiously. ‘Where’re they now? Somebody else rescue them?’

I had more than a bit of trouble relating the massacre on the beach. It’s funny how your subconscious sets about burying a traumatic event, swaddling it in a protective mental bandage and stuffing it into the nearest dark hole in your memory. Retrieving it and unwrapping its ghastliness is to repeat the initial experience, although this time you see it happen in slow motion: the slashing blades catching the morning sunlight, the spume of scarlet blood from the sailor with Anna’s eyes, the awkward angular positions of the oil-dark bodies as they lay sprawled on the bone-white beach. Finally I came to the nine bodies in a row in the sand and the pathetic little driftwood crosses. I was pretty choked and had to wait a bit, sipping at my mug of tea.

Kevin rose and walked over and placed a scrawny arm around my shoulder. ‘Take it easy, Nick. Steady on, buddy,’ he said softly, then added, ‘Later… you take it real easy now, you can tell me later, eh?’

I was bone weary and knew that if I had to, with half a gallon of coffee inside me, I could probably go another twelve hours. But now, with the little bloke not suffering seasickness and seemingly having emerged from his concussion, hallucinations — whatever — I decided I might be able to get him behind the tiller for a few hours. Just the thought of this possibility and the break it might afford me was causing an even greater sense of weariness. Any resolve must be held tightly within the mind — the slightest relaxation in commitment will bring it quickly undone. Not even thinking about resting is one of the basic rules of staying awake for a lone sailor in bad weather out at sea.

‘Yeah, maybe we’ll wait,’ I said, struggling to recover from the memory of the slaughter and the collection of the bodies on the beach. ‘The rest of the story is less important for you to know. You’re on board and that’s what matters. But what you’d better get to understand is that we’re far from out of this bloody awful mess. If, while at sea, we should manage to avoid the Jap ships and aircraft — a bloody big ‘if’, if you ask me — and
if
we make it to Australia, we’ll be at sea at least three weeks. I guess there’s plenty of time to talk. In the meantime can you hold a compass bearing, Kevin? Have you ever done any sailing?’