Hell's Hatches Page 6

  CHAPTER VI

  COMPULSORY VOLUNTEERING

  As a matter of fact, however, there had been a very considerable slip-upin "Slant's" carefully doped slate. That was plain from a number oflittle things which sunk into even my absinthe-addled brain in the fewminutes I spent in his and Rona's company while paddling them off to the_Cora_. How staggering a slip-up it must have been for him I was notable to figure until I got my nerves under control the following day.

  I was still far from pulled together when I came back to the villageafter my day of hiding (for that's what it amounted to) on the otherside of the island. With my head twanging like an overstrung banjo, Iwas feverishly anxious to get home and seek relief in the only thing Iknew would relax the tension of my breaking nerves. I had told Laku to"putem littl' fella pickaninny in rock-a-bye belonga him" just as soonas he got back to the shack. This was a long-standing joke between us,and I knew that he would interpret aright this _beche-de-mer_ order to"put the baby in its cradle" as a strict injunction to lay a certainlong green bottle in a little basket of porous coco husk, which,dampened and hung in a draught, answered the purpose of a cruderefrigerator. The vision of the slender green trickle I should shortlypour from the dewy fresh lip of that bottle was drawing me on as thethought of the oasis with its fountain draws the thirsting deserttraveller.

  Between horrors fancied and real--from my struggle at the mouth of theBottomless Pit to the coming of the Ship of Death--my nerves hadsuffered a number of trying shocks since the dawning of that accursedday; but the one that came nearest to bowling me over I had still toreceive. I had _known_ there was a Bottomless Pit; I had _known_ therewas a Death Ship; I had _known_ they were shooting niggers on the beach.As each of these horrors was projected upon my vision in turn I hadaccepted their reality as a matter of course. Didn't I see them with myown eyes? Didn't I continue to see them after I had bitten my finger?But _Rona, with her arm and her peacock shawl thrown over "Slant"Allen's shoulder, coming out of Bell's house_.... No, that wouldn'tdo.... That was one thing they couldn't put over on me. My eyes must beplaying tricks on my brain. I must be in even worse shape than Ithought. Never before had my fancy conjured up a thing so utterly,impossibly absurd. Wide-eyed and open-mouthed, I pulled up and startedkicking the shin of one foot with the toe of the other. That was anotherlittle trick I had of proving whether or not I saw what I "saw."

  At the clink of the broken coral under my shuffling feet the girl turnedher head in my direction, but, far from releasing "Slant's" neck fromher embrace, she only drew the lanky Australian closer with her rightarm, while with her left she beckoned me imperiously.

  "Whitnee, come alonga this side, washy-washy!" Her thin clear voice cutthe air like the swish of a rapier.

  It was, strangely enough, the fact that she lapsed into the vulgarest of_beche-de-mer_, rather than the eagerness of her gesture, that drovehome to my wandering wits the fact that Rona was confronted withdifficulties, that she needed help. Verging on nervous and physicalcollapse as I was (and as I knew I would continue to be until I hadgulped my first steadying draught from the cool green bottle), therealization that something concrete was demanded brought me instantlyout of the half-trance in which I had walked since dawn. Still a sorryenough specimen, I was at least sufficiently in hand not to need anymore finger-bitings or shin-kickings to know the difference between whatseemed real and what was really real. Letting my easel go one way and mypaint box the other, I hastened forward in answer to Rona's summons.

  "Katchem washy-washy one piecee boat," Rona began as I came up, herheaving breast, flushed face and flashing eyes revealing the emotionthat held her in its grip.

  "Man-man; my word, what name this fella thing you do?" I interruptedbetween breaths, blurting mixed _pidgin_ and _beche-de-mer_ English of abrand to match the vile blend the girl had discharged at me.

  "I too much cross this fella 'Slan','" she started to explain. "Him toomuch--"

  "You'd think she was cross with me, Whitney, if you could see the wayshe's sticking me in the neck with her hat pin," Allen cut in, thehalf-sheepish, half-amused grin he had worn from the first broadening ashe spoke.

  That was the first "straight" English to be spoken, and the words hadthe effect of reminding Rona that she had been speaking nothing but lowjargon from the outset. For weeks she had been taking the greatest painsto avoid both of the weird volapuks in all her chats with me. Pullingherself together with an effort, she strove again to be a purist.

  "'Scuse me, Whit-nee," she chirruped, paying "Slant" for his sally witha prod that made him duck like a prize-fighter avoiding a straight-armpunch; "'scuse me, but I'm veh-ry mad. This bloody boundah he put_kor-klee_ in Bel-la's drink. He take Bel-la to schoonah. Now we all gooff to schoonah. If Bel-la he dead, then I keel this boundah, 'Slan'.'You will do us the paddl'?--ple-ese, Whit-nee."

  There was a deal more that I would fain have been enlightened about, butmy brain was clear enough now to understand the urgent necessity ofgetting off to the _Cora_ without delay. A drugged man (or a poisonedone--it was not until later that I learned how that strange essence ofthe wild Papuan fig might be expected to act) on a plague-infestedblack-birder looked like just about the last word in hopelessness; but(I told myself) if there was anything I could do for my friend, it wasup to me to try to do it. Rona seemed to have some sort of plan in herhead, though just what she was taking Allen along for I didn't quitetwig at the moment.

  The funny part of it was that the Australian didn't seem particularlyaverse from going off to the schooner. Indeed, it was he who cut in tocall Rona's attention to the fact that they were rushing preparations onthe _Cora_ for getting under way, adding: "If you don't want to be leftat the post I might suggest you whip up a bit." Even as he spoke thethrobbing wail of a chantey came to our ears across the water, and Icould just make out the blur of motion on the forecastle where a knot ofniggers was circling round the capstan.

  "Washy-washy! Quick! quick! Whit-nee," implored Rona, leading the way,with Allen's head still in the crook of her arm, to the canoe; "we mustmake the great hur-ee."

  Luckily, the dugout, although Allen had left it pulled well up on thebeach when he landed, was half awash through the rising of the tide, nowjust about to ebb. I launched it without difficulty. Still with herknife at "Slant's" neck, Rona made him enter ahead of her and crouch inthe bottom of the canoe, well forward, while she seated herself on thesinnet-wrapped thwart immediately behind his hunched shoulders. When theunabashed rascal coolly leaned back and started to make himselfcomfortable with an arm thrown over her knee, the girl stiffened with astart of repulsion. It was more than a prick she gave him this time, forI saw the sudden swell of his jaw muscles wipe out the lines of his grinas his teeth set over a repressed oath.

  Pushing off, I slid gingerly along the port weatherboard until the canoeheeled just enough to bring a gaping hole in the starboard bow clear ofthe water that started to pour through it, and began to paddlecautiously inside the outrigger, the only place I could get at fromwhere I sat. Our progress was, of course, slow as to speed and wobbly asto direction. Even at that, a good deal of water kept slopping in, and Icouldn't blame Allen, who was sitting in it, for asking Rona if sheminded if he baled a bit with his sun-helmet.

  Her only reply was another prod with the needlepointed _kris_. (I knewit was the little Jolo dagger, for I had seen it as she adjusted hershawl on sitting down). "Hur-ee, Whit-nee," she urged, quiveringlytense, and continued to keep her flaming gaze riveted on the schooner,where the latter, foot by foot, was moving up on her shortening chain.

  About halfway out Rona gave a start and a glad little cry. "I seeBel-la," she laughed. "He stand up by wheel. By jingo, he look--he looklike he lick his weight in wile cats!"

  That had been the big Southerner's favourite expression when, glowingwith the reaction from his deep, eye-opening dive from the reef, hewould come prancing back to his door of a morning. The sight of his baremuscular torso, whi
te as marble against the dingy folds of thehalf-hoisted mainsail, must have called up in the girl's mind thepicture of Bell breezing in from his bath, and brought the terselyquaint phrase to her lips. As a matter of fact, there was no saying atthat distance _how_ Bell looked; but it was good to see him on his feet,at any rate. Probably Rona had been mistaken about the poisoning.

  "I told you he was all right," Allen remarked drily, shifting a fewinches to get clear of the water that was beginning to swish about hisknees. "He was drunk--dead drunk; that's all. He began to buck up anhour ago. Looked through my glass and saw them dousing him with water.First thing he did was to take a drink (plenty of it aboard)--saw himtilt the bottle. Then he must have made them open up the hatches.There's more than the crew lining the rail there for'ard; besides--youdon't think the slop-chute from the galley spills out the bait that'sdrawing those black fins, do you? I won't need to tell you they don'tbelong to chambered nautili out for an afternoon sail. There's aman-eating shark under every one of them. Can I lend you my binoculars?"

  He started to slip the strap of the powerful racing glasses over hisneck, but desisted when Rona refused to clear the way by lifting thepoint of her dagger. Save for maintaining that one important littlepoint of contact, she ignored him completely, and "Slant" seemed ratherto resent the latter more than the former.

  "Well, if you don't want to use it, I suppose you won't mind if I have abit of a look-see," he went on in half-assumed petulance. Rona repliedwith the usual prod, but interposed no further objection when he raisedand began focussing the glasses.

  "Clubbing niggers on the fo'c'sl'," he commented presently, as signs ofcommotion were visible forward. "Skipper don't want 'em too thick ondeck while he's getting under way, most likely."

  Then, a minute later: "Looks like you'll need an ice-breaker to clear apassage through those sharks, Whitney; or perhaps we can walk acrosstheir backs from the edge of the jam. Seem to be thick enough to givegood solid footing."

  And again, shortly: "Chain almost straight-up-and-down, Whitney. Mudhookgoing to break out in a couple of minutes. Can't accelerate that 'long,long pull' of yours, can you? Looks as if they weren't planning to waitfor us."

  It was a gruesome passage, that last hundred yards. The sharks werehardly as thick as Allen's picturesque hyperbole might have led one tobelieve, but there were undoubtedly more than a score of triangulardorsals slashing about in swift circles. But the sharks, for the mostpart, gave us a good berth. It was the things that _didn't_ get out ofthe way that came near to flooring me at the last--black, bloatedbodies, floating face down, like logs awash, till the canoe struck them,then to roll shudderingly over and sweep you with the sightless gaze oftheir wide, staring eyes as you fended with the paddle. Rona, herflashing glances running back and forth over the schooner (followingBell, who appeared to be lending a hand now and then on sheet orhalyard), seemed not to see the floating horrors around us. Allen'ssteely eyes met the corpses stare for stare, and looked them down. Butupon me the horrors which passed the others by descended with fullforce. How I kept going is more than I can guess. But I did it. At lastthe loom of the _Cora's_ blistered starboard quarter cut off the seawardview, and I steadied the dugout in close to the upper line of herweed-foul copper sheathing.

  Apparently no notice whatever had been taken of us up to this time.Short-handed as he was, Bell was doubtless too busy to keep a lookout,while to the few niggers watching us through the wire the sight of adugout carrying "two fella white marsters and one fella Mary" was ofindifferent interest. All they cared about was getting away from theDeath Ship, and they didn't need to be told that this "pickaninny boat"hadn't come to help forward their desires in that direction. Besides,the guard walking up and down behind them with a Lee-Enfield over hisblack shoulder had undoubtedly given them to understand that the firstone to start over the side would be shot.

  It must have been the guard who reported us finally. Burning withimpatience, Rona was just prodding up Allen and ordering him to clamberaboard and tell "Mistah Bell" she wanted to speak to him, when I heardthe shout of "'Vast heavin'!" ring out, and presently a familiar tousledhead was poked over the top of the barbed wire. (I should explain,perhaps, that three or four strands of "nigger wire" are run all the wayround the rail of every labour-recruiting ship. This is done with adouble purpose--to make it difficult for the blacks aboard to bolt,should the spirit move them, and to serve as a partial protection whileat anchor against the always imminent attacks of the treacherous shorenatives.)

  There was a look in Bell's face I had never seen there before. The oldfamiliar furrows of dissipation showed deep around the mouth, but if hehad been drinking heavily, there was nothing to indicate it. What struckme at once was his air of determination--I might almost say exaltation.His head was held high, his shoulders were thrown back, and he mighthave been treading the deck of a battle-ship as he swung up to the rail.Everything about him betokened the man who has taken a great resolve,and means to see it through if it kills him.

  Although I had heard no word of it up to that moment, I understood atonce that Bell had taken command of the schooner, that he was going totry to sail her to some port where the plague-stricken blacks could begiven medical attention and kept under control. It was like Bell to takeon a job like that, I said to myself; but he would do it as a matter ofcourse. It would never occur to him that there was any alternative, justas with an order in the Navy. There must be something more to accountfor that air of high resolve.... I couldn't help thinking that, and Iwas right. He let out what it was shortly.

  "It's right nice of you to come off to say good-bye, honey--and of you,too, Whitney," Bell called down genially; "but, as we'ah not quite whatyou'd call fixed fo' cawlahs, you'd bettah do it from wheah you a'. You,Mistah Allen, if you have fin'ly made up youah mind in the mattah ofsignin' up for the voyage, I reckon we can find accommodation fo' you.But fust, let me say that if you've got any mo' of that dope you put inmy whisky stowed about youah puson, you'd best scuppah it befo' youclimb abo'd. I doan quite twig what you did it fo', unless it was tododge out of goin' yo'self, afta you had promised to help me see the jobthrough. But now, seein' you've come off of youah own free will, Ireckon I can fo'get that lil' slip, providin' it ain't repeated."

  Although Rona could hardly have known the exact meaning of "free will,"she caught the drift of Bell's remarks readily enough. "This rottenboundah" (bounder was the worst name she knew to call a man in "pure"English) "not come himself," the girl cut in shrilly, speaking for thefirst time. "I fetch him. See!" and she threw back the folds of thepeacock shawl to reveal the bright wavy blade of her little _kris_boring into the hollow between Allen's right shoulder-blade and thecorded column of his sinewy neck.

  "From the reef I see you an' this fella 'Slan''" (Allen's shoulderquivered under her designative prod) "go off to schoonah in boat," Ronawent on, avoiding as well as she could in her excitement the jargons sheknew Bell disliked so much. "Bime-by I see 'Slan'' come back--you stopschoonah. When I go home I smell'em _kor-klee_. You no sabe _kor-klee_,Bel-la. I sabe him too much long time. I smell _kor-klee_ in oneglass--not in othah. Pu-retty soon this boundah 'Slan'' come house. Hesay: 'Bel-la go off in schoonah. Now I stop with you all time!' Then Isabe what for _kor-klee_ veh-ry queeck. So I katch'em this fella by neckan' fetch'm off schoonah. I say myself: 'If Bel-la dead, I keel thisboundah; if Bel-la not dead, _he_ keel him.' Heah he is, Bel-la--you fixhim pu-lenty. Then we go home-side."

  "So that's what upset the appl'-ca't?" There was nothing of the wrath ofthe jealous male in Bell's deep, chesty laugh. "Well, I'm not blamin'Mistah Allen fo' fallin' in love with you, honey. No propah man couldquite help doin' that, as I see it. Just the same, I can't quite approveof his way of goin' about it, no' the occasion he took fo' it, eethah.So you brought him off fo' me to execute, honey. That's right rich.Youah a brick, you shuah a'. But I won't be killin' him, honey--no,hahdly that. I'm just goin' to sign him on as Fust Mate of the _CoraAndrews_, just as he 'lowed he do at the beginnin'. O
f co'se I won't begoin' home with you, honey. Doan you see I'm in command of this heahship?"

  A sudden shiver shook Rona's tense frame at those last words. Halfrising, she started to speak, but Bell cut her short with lifted handand went on himself.

  "Mistah Allen," he said, addressing himself now to the huddled figure inthe bottom of the canoe; "I said I was goin' to sign you on an' take youwith me. Let me qualify those wuds just a trifle. I'll pumit you to goif you'll agree in advance to my tums. I might explain that theah's twodif'rent views in the mattah of the best way of avoidin' catchin' thepleg. One is, that you must keep strictly soba--straight teetotal; theotha--diametrically opposed to the fust--is that you must keep deaddrunk--pif'ucated. Now I reckon that it's goin' to take at least onewhite man to sail this hookah all the way to Australyuh; that is to say,at least one white man must steah cleah of the pleg fo' the entahpriseto be crowned with success. But as theah ain't no suah data as to whichis the safe an' sutin way to 'complish this, I figa theah's nothin' elseto do but sta't with two white men, and let one of 'em try the fustpurscripshun an' the otha the second.

  "Now (tho' I must admit it's a bit high-handed on my pa't) I've alreadypicked the one I'm goin' to take; so, if you elect to sign on, MistahAllen, you'll have to take the otha. Theah's a dozen cases of whiskyabo'd--not Jawny Wakah, to be suah, but still fayah to middlin' cawnjooce--an' I had to toss off a tumblah o' two of it as an antidote fo'that dream-provokin' dope you wished onto me. But"--Bell's head was upand his shoulders back again--"_that's the last_." His square jawsnapped shut on the words like a sprung wolf-trap. Now I understood._That_ was his Great Resolve.

  Bell paused, and in the waiting silence I became aware for the firsttime of the low rumble of groaning from the bowels of the ship.

  "So you'll see, Mistah Allen"--the corners of his mouth relaxed into asmile as Bell resumed--"that since the Skippah's plumped to try the'soba man' preventative, theah's nothin' left for the Mate to do but tofight off the pleg by the 'drunk man' method. Theah'll only be two ofus, you see, an' it's theahfo' up to us to hedge ouah bets an' playsafe. But you won't be havin' to go if you ain't hankerin' after it. I'mnot (in spite of what the way you've been 'shanghaied' by--by Miss Ronamight lead you to think) runnin' a press-gang. It's entiahly up to youas to whethah o' not you want to sail as the drunken Mate of the sobaSkippah of a black-birdah full of pleg-rotten niggahs. You see, MistahAllen"--the whimsical grin broadened--"you see I'm not tryin' to luahyou on by paintin' the picture any brightah than it is. 'Drunk Mate of asoba Skippah'--do you get that?"

  Allen made no reply, that is, not directly. Raising his hand to fend theexpected prod from Rona, he wriggled halfway round and started to speakto me, where, in the stern, I still paddled the canoe gently against theturning tide and held it close alongside the schooner. For an instant Iwas puzzled with the look on the side-face he presented, but almost atonce saw the reason for it. For the first time in my recollection thethin upper lip was uncurled by its mocking smile. By that, I thought Icould gauge something of the extent of his slip-up. Yet--if I could haveread the man's mind--I would have known that it was something evendeeper than the wreck of personal hopes that had sobered "Slant" Allen.What it was I learned later.

  "Whitney," he began, the words coming huskily from the dryness of histhroat; "I don't dope a man's chances for finishing inside the distanceflag in this little Handicap of Captain Bell's as better than a hundredto one. That's long odds to be on the short end of when a man's life ishis stake. I don't give a damn about my life. Anyone will tell you that.I've thrown it into the pool on worse than a hundred-to-one shot a goodmany times before this. But--well, I'd rather appreciate it if--if youcould see fit to make a point of not telling my friends on the beachthat--that I had any help in--in volunteering--volunteering to lendCaptain Bell a hand in getting this hooker on her way."

  Rona, sensing that her responsibilities, so far as Allen was concerned,were at an end, raised the _kris_ from his neck and thrust it into theknot of her _sulu_. The Australian lifted himself lightly to his feetand looked Bell straight between the eyes. "Lead me to your whisky," hesaid in a steadied voice.... "By Gawd, I need it!"

  Poising an instant on the middle of a forward thwart of the canoe, hesprang to the rail, clambered smartly to the top strand of the barbedwire, and swung lightly down to the deck on the main backstay.

  It was at this juncture that I went through the feeble motions of tryingto act the part of a man myself. I pointed out to Bell that I hadknocked about on yachts a good deal, and, while I couldn't claim to bemuch of a hand with niggers, was probably as good a navigator as Allenwas. I also said something about three men standing a better chance thantwo of pulling off the job, and even added, half jocularly, that I wasabout ready to go to Australia anyway, as I had had word that anexhibition of my pictures was due to open in Sydney in a fortnight. Ionly hope my words didn't sound as hollow to Bell as they did to me--forthey were the last ones I was ever to speak to him.

  Bell's gentlemanliness--nay, rather, his gentleness--came home to memore in what he refrained from saying in his reply than in what he said.He did _not_ say that he had no absinthe aboard, and that, as aconsequence, I would be only more useless and undependable than if hehad. He did _not_ say that his hands would be full enough looking aftercrazy niggers without having a crazy white man to keep an eye on. Heeven refrained from recalling to my mind a story I had told him of aFrench official in New Caledonia whose absinthe supply had run out whilehe was at an isolated post, and who, unable to stand the deprivation tothe end of the three-days' run in to Noumea in a trading cutter, hadtaken a header over the side almost in sight of port--and relief.

  All he _did_ say was: "Nonsense, ol' man.... Quite out of thequestion.... Nothin' doin'." Then, as though to soften the curtness ofhis refusal: "'Twouldn't be propa, Whitney, to set a man that can slapcolour on canvas like you can to herdin' sick niggas. Besides, I'mcountin' on you to stick 'roun' Kai an' be a sort o' fatha an' motha' toRona while I'm gone. Youah the only man on the island I'd ca'ah to trustwith that job."

  There was nothing more to be said after that, I told myself; nothingmore to be done. I gave up limply and relapsed into wondering how longit would take me to paddle Rona ashore and traverse the quarter of amile of coral clinkers between the place where she would land and thelong green bottle cooling in its breeze-swept swing beneath my coco leafjalousies.