The World Duology (World Odyssey / Fiji: A Novel) (26 page)

43

Apia,
Navigator Islands, 1848

N
athan was up at dawn to experience
Rainmaker’s
departure from Apia. Two days had elapsed since he’d joined the rough-and-tumble game ashore with the island youths –
coconut bash
he’d called it – and he was still stiff and sore even if his bruises had faded. The painful after-effects reminded him not to be so impulsive in future.

Other passengers were on deck to join with Nathan in bidding farewell to Apia. All, it seemed, had enjoyed the brief stopover.

As crewmen readied
Rainmaker
for departure, a small crowd of villagers gathered on the jetty to wave her off. Nathan spotted a statuesque island woman amongst them, wearing a white silk dress. He thought she could have been Sally, but wasn’t sure. Memories of his night with the young woman came flooding back. He’d considered looking for her ashore, but had decided against that after the battering he received playing
coconut bash
. He didn’t think he’d be up to any more exertions for a day or two yet.

Calm seas beneath blue skies greeted
Rainmaker
as she left the harbor. Ahead was a ten-day voyage to Fiji. First, the schooner had to stop some twenty miles along the coast to collect an English missionary from Opolu’s Wesleyan mission station. The missionary was also Fiji-bound. He was being transferred to boost numbers at an understaffed mission post on one of Fiji’s outer islands.

As the schooner follow
ed its westward route along Upolu’s northern coastline, a cataclysmic event occurred beneath the seabed several hundred miles to the north. A mile below the ocean’s surface, the earth’s tectonic plates moved, causing a massive earthquake whose effects were felt throughout the Navigator Islands and beyond. In Apia and elsewhere on Opolu, huts and other structures were destroyed within seconds, though there was little loss of life. Not yet at least.

The passengers and crew aboard
Rainmaker
were as yet unaware of this event. They only learned there had been an earthquake hours later when the schooner anchored offshore, opposite the Wesleyan mission station, to pick up the missionary.

Even from a mile distant, the earthquake damage the station had sustained
was very visible. One wall of the main building had collapsed and the entire structure had been left on a lean. Surrounding European-style houses had sustained similar damage while the thatched huts of the islanders had been completely destroyed. Missionaries and islanders could be seen assessing the damage and salvaging possessions.

Then a strange thing happened: the tide slowly but steadily withdrew. Where there’d been a mile of ocean a few minutes
earlier, now there was only the exposed seabed.
Rainmaker
was left sitting high and dry along with hundreds of flapping, gasping tropical fish, which looked as confused as the humans who were gawking at them.

“What the hell’s
going on?” an incredulous Earnest Featherstone, the first mate, asked.

No-one had any idea. They’d never seen anything like it.

Finally, the tide returned and all seemed back to normal.

The small wave that passed beneath
Rainmaker
a few minutes later was so small it wasn’t noticed by anyone on board. But it was traveling fast. Faster than a man, or even a horse, could run.

It wasn’t until the wave reached shallow water it became noticeable. Passengers and crew stared in disbelief as the wave grew rapidly in size. It showed no sign of slowing as it reached shore.

“Tidal wave!” someone shouted.

Nathan had already identified it as a tsunami. Though he’d never seen one before, he’d heard about them. Johnson Senior had witnessed one in the Philippines. It had claimed many lives, he’d said.

By this time the wave was higher than a two-storied house. Only now did those ashore notice the approaching danger. Although they were little bigger than ants in the distance, the terror they were experiencing at that moment could be imagined. The missionaries and islanders began fleeing inland, dragging each other and their children with them.

“They’re doomed!” a male passenger cried out.

The man wasn’t exaggerating. Those unlucky enough to be on shore at that moment, had nowhere to run. The mission station was hemmed in by high cliffs. Even from this distance, it was obvious the cliffs were too steep to climb.

Throughout this,
the sea around
Rainmaker
remained unnaturally calm. All the mayhem was happening ashore.

Those aboard the schooner could only look on helplessly as the wave swept over the people ashore and crashed against the cliffs. Before it retreated, it grew to the height of a five-storied building, perhaps higher, and seemed to be trying to reach the other side of the island. When it finally withdrew, the bodies of some of its victims could be seen being tossed about in its turbulent waters. There appeared to be no survivors.

#

That afternoon, after leading a search party ashore to look for su
rvivors, a grim Captain Marsden confirmed there were none. Nor had any reports been received from up or down the coast, but the captain said he feared the worst.

Nathan thought it required little intelligence to imagine the damage and loss of life that would have occurred if the tsunami had hit Apia and other heavily populated villages
along the coast.

It wouldn’t be until after
Rainmaker
reached Fiji that he and the others would learn that Apia had somehow missed the worst of the tsunami. The main damage had been around the mission station and the small villages to the west of it, and loss of life had been surprisingly small.

As night fell and Opolu disappeared behind a veil of darkness astern of
Rainmaker
, Nathan wondered what adventures awaited him in Fiji. He hoped the terrifying drama of the day just gone wasn’t a precursor to events to come.

44

Kororareka, New Zealand, 1848

T
he Drakes’ arrival at Kororareka coincided with a period of tension in northern New Zealand between the whites and the warlike Nga Puhi, the predominant Maori tribe of the north. Tensions, over land ownership in particular, frequently manifested themselves in violence.

Those tensions didn’t end there. Age-old disputes between tribes continued to this day. Where those disputes were traditionally settled with mere
s, or clubs, and other traditional weapons, these days they were settled with muskets. Understandably, the British soldiers garrisoned nearby were on continual high alert. Their twitchy mood – and that of the white settlers – wasn’t helped by rumors of cannibalism, which persisted despite the recent introduction of Christianity to these shores.

Caught up in the middle
of all this were the English couple George and Shelly Bristow. The Wesleyan mission station they ran on the outskirts of Kororareka was slap bang in the middle of an area of fertile soils and ideal growing conditions – an area whose ownership was currently being bitterly contested.

White settlers who were breaking in the land for farming were being constantly harassed
by Maori warriors who resented the presence of the pakeha. Descendants of the great Nga Puhi rangatira, or chief, Hongi Hika, the warriors were becoming increasingly aggressive, burning down settlers’ homes and occasionally killing whites.

Atrocities occurred
on both sides. The settlers and soldiers were never slow to seek retribution. Against the ever-increasing numbers of whites and the superior firepower they brought with them, the Nga Puhi were never going to prevail. However, they were going to make life difficult for these pakeha intruders.

While houses burned and people died, the Bristows and the other members of the mission station were left alone.
The Nga Puhi respected the mission station and the kindly people who manned it. The pakehas’ god intrigued them, and several had already embraced Christianity.

And so it was into this maelstrom the Drakes arrived. Their hosts made them immediately welcome, affording them every hospitality and introducing them to the residents of the mission station. Those residents included the Bristows’ gr
owing flock whose number comprised both local Nga Puhi and members of other tribes.

Susannah was fascinat
ed by the Maoris she came into contact with at the mission station. She found she was afraid of them and endeared to them at the same time. Her hosts assured her that her reaction was entirely understandable. Though fearsome warriors whose tattooed faces made them look even more frightening, the Maoris were naturally friendly people who were generous of spirit to those they called friends.

The young Englishwoman found this out for herself on her first night at the mission station. She and Drake Senior joined the Bristows for dinner in their modest bungalow and discovered they weren’t the only guests: a new Christian convert had also been invited. He was Manu Te Whaiti, a young Nga Puhi warrior and proud descendant of the great rangatira Hongi Hika.

Manu wasn’t at all like Susannah expected. He was well educated, having attended a missionary school in his adopted hometown Auckland, and spoke excellent English. He wasn’t shy either, and he kept his white audience entertained with intriguing and often humorous stories well into the night.

One tale, in particular, caught Susannah’s fancy, as it did her dining companions. It began when she asked Manu whether he’d ever met Hongi Hika.

“I was too young to remember Hongi,” Manu said, shaking his head. “But my father knew him well and he told me many stories about him.”

“Tell her the one about Hongi’s suit of armor,” George Bristow said.

Manu needed no encouragement. It was one of his favorite stories. Turning back to Susannah he said, “Before I was born, Hongi traveled to England where he met King George the Fourth.”

“He was a sensation there,” Shelly Bristow interjected enthusiastically. She’d heard the story many times, but never tired of it.

“Yes,” Manu agreed. “He became quite the socialite and was courted by high society wherever he went.”

“How exciting,” Susannah enthused.

Warming to his story, Manu continued, “King George was so enamored with Hongi that he presented him with a suit of armor.”

“This is where it gets interesting,” George Bristow advised Susannah.

Manu continued, “I’m told Hongi was so taken with his suit of armor he wore it often during the return voyage to New Zealand. Even at meal times when he had to lift the visor of his steel helmet to eat or drink.”

Manu’s audience laughed heart
ily at the thought of a Maori rangatira dining in a suit of armor.

When the laughter died down Manu said, “But that is not all. After Hongi returned to Kororareka, he distributed m
uskets he had acquired to his warriors and embarked by canoe on a journey south, attacking enemy tribes along the way.”

Shelly looked at Susannah. “It was horrible,” she lamented. “Hundreds were killed.”

“And eaten,” George added.

“Eaten?” Susannah asked, aghast.

“Yes my people were cannibals,” Manu said honestly. “Eating our enemies was the worst insult we could bestow upon them.”

The conversation lapsed as the diners considered the grizzly news Manu had just shared with them.

“The suit of armor,” George said, prompting the young warrior.

“Ah
, yes,” Manu said. “Hongi was so proud of his suit of armor he wore it on his raids.”

“That didn’t last long!” George chuckled.

Manu continued, “On one of his raids, Hongi’s canoe overturned and the rangatira nearly drowned under the weight of his armor.” The young warrior smiled. “Fortunately, the canoe overturned in shallow water, and he survived. But it taught him a lesson and he never wore the suit of armor again to my father’s knowledge.”

Listening to Manu, Susannah found it hard to reconcile the savage looking
, tattooed warrior sitting opposite her with the likeable, educated young man he really was. She couldn’t help thinking if there were other Maoris like him, the race had a promising future in store.

Drake Senior was thinking along similar lines. Looking at Manu, he asked, “What are your plans for your future, young man?”

“I do not know,” Manu said thoughtfully. “I have given my heart to God. I know he has a plan for me, but he has not shared that plan with me yet.”

“I’m sure he will soon enough,” Drake Senior said.

“Amen to that,” George said. “Shall we pray?”

With that, the diners held hands around the table and bowed their heads while George led them in prayer.

45

Coral Coast, Fiji, 1848

N
amosi laughed joyfully as she watched Jack frolic with their three young children in the shallows of the turquois lagoon in front of the village they called home. Five-year-old Mara, four-year-old Joni and two-year-old Luana loved the irrepressible Cockney as much as she did. Namosi considered him a wonderful friend, husband and provider, and a doting father, which was just as well as she had another baby on the way.

Jack
, now thirty-two, interrupted his play with the children and waved to his Fijian princess to join them. She declined with a return wave. The baby was only a month or so away, and she was feeling tired.

Life had changed as much for Namosi as it had for Jack after he’d been found, near death, washed up on the beach
here at Koroi, on the Coral Coast, seven years earlier. He’d been found close to the very spot he now frolicked with their children.

As the oldest daughter of Koroi’s ratu, or chief, she’d been expected to marry a Fijian of royal bloodlines – not a
lowly vulagi, or foreigner, which is what Jack was to the ratu and his extended family. Especially not one who had literally been washed ashore and had no prospects. However, that had all changed after Namosi nursed him back to health.

The attraction
between the two had been mutual and instant. He’d proposed very early on in their relationship and she’d accepted.

Namosi’s father, Tau, had opposed the relationship, but his opposition gradually crumbled as his people adopted the friendly
Cockney as one of their own. The wedding that followed – six months to the day after Jack appeared uninvited in their midst – was one of the biggest Koroi had seen in a decade.

Jack’s new status as the ratu’s son-in-law proved a Godsend in the years that followed.
After mastering the Fijian tongue and establishing himself as an interpreter for the sandalwood traders so prevalent in Fijian waters, he then followed his entrepreneurial instincts and purchased cutting rights to the Fijians’ coastal sandalwood plantations before on-selling those rights to European traders and making handsome profits.

As profits grew, Jack purchased a large quantity of muskets, which he donated to his father-in-law. The donation had been timely as Koroi was at war with a neighboring village. Koroi’s enemies backed off when they realized they were outgunned all of a sudden, further boosting Jack’
s popularity with the villagers and with his father-in-law in particular.

Namosi giggled as her three children tried to drown Jack in the shallows. The ch
ildren shrieked with laughter when Jack emerged spluttering and spitting out seawater.

While she was content
with her lot and still deeply in love with her
prince
, as she called him, Namosi was also very aware of Jack’s reputation as a womanizer. He seemed irresistible to many of the women – married and single – throughout Viti Levu and indeed on many of the outer islands, and he just didn’t seem to be able to help himself. As a result, run-ins with irate husbands were a fairly frequent occurrence. Unfortunately, his travels as a trader provided plenty of opportunity for him to indulge himself in his extramarital interests.

Namosi had given up complaining to Jack as he’d laughed it off, saying she was imagining things. She’d complained to her father, but that had fallen on deaf ears because he had four wives of his own and co
nsidered Jack’s philandering entirely normal.

So she’d learned to accept Jack as he was. She never doubted his love for her, and she knew he’d always return home for that was where his heart was.

Namosi’s thoughts were interrupted when Jack dragged the children up the beach to join her in the shade of the palm trees that fringed the edge of the lagoon. “How was that?” she asked.

“Beautiful!” Jack said. “You should have joined us.” He set the children down on the sand then lay down beside Namosi and kissed her cheek tenderly.

This day was precious to the Hallidays for tomorrow Jack was heading out on a new venture that could see him away from his family for quite some time.

#

Later, alone, Jack sat looking out to sea. Namosi had taken the children up to their nearby bure. As he often did when he was on his lonesome, the Cockney took the opportunity to look back on the last seven years and remind himself how lucky he was.

Life couldn’t be better
, he decided. Having survived his poverty-stricken years in London and then the hellish years as a convict in New South Wales, Fiji seemed like paradise on earth.

Looking back on his first year here on the Coral Coast, Jack recalled the specter of bounty hunter
Frank Sparrow had hung over him like a hangman. He’d never mentioned Sparrow to anyone – not even to Namosi – but he’d been half expecting the bounty hunter, or one of his associates, to show up.

That all changed shortly after the first anni
versary of his arrival in Koroi when news reached him that the British Government had laid off its South Pacific contractors, or bounty hunters. The official reason was the retention of such contractors was uneconomic despite the undeniable success of Sparrow and his associates in rounding up escaped convicts. Unfortunately for the contractors – and fortunately for escapees like Jack – the economics of tracking, apprehending and returning convicts to the penal settlements they’d escaped from didn’t add up.

Despite the good news, Jack
had still kept an eye out for Sparrow for the next year or so – more out of habit than anything else. He needn’t have worried. A few months after the South Pacific contractors were decommissioned, Sparrow was found dead, his throat slit, in a back alley in Apia, in the Navigator Islands. Rumor had it a former convict from Hobart Town, in Van Diemen’s Land, had tracked the bounty hunter down and exacted retribution. Apparently Sparrow had given him a hard time after apprehending him during a failed escape bid several years earlier.

All that was in the past.
Right now Jack was looking forward to his next venture. It would take him into the island’s interior. But first, he had to travel to Levuka, on Ovalau Island, to the east of Viti Levu.

While Jack was
content with his lot, the sandalwood trade had all but collapsed as a result of short-sighted Fijian landowners selling off the sandalwood plantations to greedy European traders without any thought being given to conservation of the precious natural resource. This had forced him to diversify and find new trading opportunities.

Jack’s focus now was on securing cutting rights to the Fijian kauri forests of Viti Levu’s interior. Before he headed into the interior, he’d arranged to
meet with one of the island’s most respected ratus who also happened to be a major landowner and who was currently – and inconveniently – visiting an ailing brother at Levuka. Rather than wait indefinitely until the ratu returned, he’d opted to go to him.

It wasn’t only the thought of a new business venture that excited Jack.
He was also looking forward to seeing his latest lady friend who conveniently happened to live at Levuka.

The sight of a schooner attracted Jack’s attention. Sailing eastward, she was a beautiful sight with her sails flapping in the faint nor’wester. How he loved the sight of sailing ships as they passed by. He estimated this vessel was half a mile beyond the offshore reef – close to where he’d parted company with
Besieged
all those years ago. Passing ships always reminded him of that dramatic night, but he’d learned to push the memory from his mind as quickly as he could. That was another
Jack Halliday
, he always told himself. He’d long since decided there was no mileage to be gained thinking about his past life.

As he always did when he watched the passing ships, Jack wondered where this particular vessel came from, where she was heading and who sailed aboard her. He wasn’
t to know the schooner was none other than
Rainmaker
and she was heading for Levuka, his next destination. Nor was he to know that among the passengers on the schooner’s deck at that very moment was an American by the name of Nathan Johnson.

The Cockney was distracted by an unusual cloud formation that had formed above the schooner in an otherwise cloudless sky. It resembled a seagull in flight. He
took that as a good omen for his journey ahead.

On board
Rainmaker
, Nathan had been distracted by the same cloud formation. He studied it for a moment then returned his attention to the distant shoreline. If he’d had his telescope with him, he’d have seen Jack Halliday looking directly at him, but the distance was too great for the naked eye.

Nathan could see the village behind Jack, however. He
idly wondered who lived there and how its residents passed their days.