Nation (28 page)

And on top of this Cookie was good company and seemed to have sailed to everywhere on just about any kind of ship, and he was constantly rebuilding his own coffin, which he’d brought aboard. It was now part of the furniture of the galley, and most of the time the saucepans were piled up on top of it. He seemed surprised that Daphne thought all this was a touch on the odd side.

Perhaps this was because the most important thing about this coffin was that Cookie did not intend to die in it. He intended to live in it instead, because he had designed it to float. He had even built a keel on it. He took great pleasure in showing her how well appointed it was inside. There was a shroud, in case he actually did die, but which could easily be used as a sail until that unlucky day; there was a small folding mast for this very purpose. Inside the coffin, which was padded, there were rows of pockets that held ship’s biscuits, dried fruit, fishhooks (and fishing line), a compass, charts, and a wonderful device for distilling drinking water from the sea. It was a tiny floating world.

“I got the idea off a harpooner I met when I was working on the whalers,” he told her one day as he was adding yet another pocket to the insides of the coffin. “He was a rum ’un and no mistake. Had more tattoos than the Edinburgh Festival and all his teeth filed as sharp as daggers, but he lugged this coffin onto every ship he sailed with so’s if he died, he’d have a proper Christian funeral and not be chucked over the side sewn up in a bit o’ canvas with a cannonball for company. I thought about it myself—it’s a good basic idea, but it needs a little bit of changing. Anyway, I didn’t stay long on that ship on account of coming down with bowel weevils just before we rounded the cape, and I had to put ashore at Valparaiso. It was probably a blessing in disguise, ’cause I reckon that ship was heading for a bad end. I’ve seen a few mad captains in my time, but that one was as crazy as a spoon. And you may depend upon it, when the captain is crazy, so is the ship. I often wonder what happened to ’em all.”

Daphne finished making the mother-of-beer and walked down the slope until she could see the little crumbling cliff that overlooked the beach. Mau was there, and so were all the gunners, including the Papervine Woman, for some reason.

The cannon are useless, she thought. He must know that. So what does he think he’s doing?

There was a distant shout of “Bang!” and she sighed….

Two of the Gentlemen of Last Resort ran up onto the deck and joined the captain at the ship’s rail.

“What is the emergency?” said Mr. Black. “Surely we’re nowhere near the Mothering Sundays yet?”

“The lookout said he saw a maroon fired,” said the captain, his telescope to his eye. “Some poor soul’s been shipwrecked, I daresay. There’s an island there. It’s not on the charts. Technically, Mr. Black, I need your permission to change course.”

“Of course you must, aha, change course, Captain,” said Mr. Black. “Indeed, I note that you already have.”

“That is correct, sir,” said the captain carefully. “The sea has its own laws.”

“Well done, Captain. I should listen to your advice.” There was a moment’s silence, caused by nobody mentioning the king’s daughter.

“I’m sure Roberts got her through, sir,” said the captain, looking carefully at the distant island again.

“It’s kind of you to say so.”

“In the meantime,” the captain went on cheerfully, “I do believe I am looking at a very lucky shipwrecked mariner. Someone else may have discovered an island over there before us. I can see a fire, and a man fishing from a—” He stopped, and adjusted the telescope. “Well, I have to say he seems to be sitting in a coffin….”

There was no alarm the next day, but there was one the day after, which Mau said went well. Every morning, people became better and better at shouting “Bang!” And every day Daphne wondered what Mau was really planning.

T
HE
R
AIDERS CAME JUST
before dawn.

They came with drums and torchlight making red suns in the mists.

Mau’s ears heard them. In his eyes the flames were reflected. Then he awoke from what was not exactly a sleep, and felt the future happening.

How did that work? he wondered. On the very first day he’d stood guard on the Nation, he’d had the memory of this. It had been flying toward him from the future. He’d always had that trick with the silver thread that pulled him toward the future he pictured in his head. But this time it was the future that had been tugging at him, pulling him to this place, at this time.

“They are here,” someone whispered beside him. He looked at the Unknown Woman. He’d never seen much of an expression on her face before, but now it terrified the life out of him. It was sheer poisonous hatred.

“Ring the bell!” he snapped, and she hurried up the beach. Mau walked backward, watching the mist. He hadn’t expected that. He hadn’t
seen
it!

The sound of the
Sweet Judy
’s bell sang out across the lagoon. Mau ran up the track, and was relieved to see faint shapes hurrying through the damp billows. Where was the sun? It must be time for dawn!

Over toward the low forest, the first grandfather bird threw up, and was immediately attacked by its archenemy.

“
Waark!
Yer lying ol’ hypocrite!”

And with that the dawn chorus exploded, with every bird, frog, toad, and insect screaming its head off. Golden light rolled in from the east, melting ragged holes in the mist. It was a beautiful picture, apart from the black-and-red war canoes. Most of them were too big to enter the lagoon. They had grounded on the spit of land by Little Nation, and figures were pouring onto the sand.

No voices in my head, Mau thought. No dead people. It’s just me in here. I’ve got to get this right….

Pilu hurried up with a heavy package wrapped in papervine cloth. “It’s been kept dry. It will be fine.”

Mau looked along the high ground. Someone was standing by each cannon with a long fuse in his hand, or in the case of one,
her
hand. They were watching him anxiously.
Everyone
was watching him.

He looked down at the beach again and saw Cox, towering over the Raiders.

He’d been expecting someone like Foxlip, skinny and unhealthy-looking, but this man was a good foot taller and nearly the same size as Milo. He had feathers sticking up around his trouserman hat. They were red, the feathers of a chief. So he’d done what the ghost girl had said he’d do: He’d taken over. That was their law. The strongest man led. That made sense. At least, it made sense to strong men.

The Raiders were holding back, though. They were staying near their boats; only one was coming up the beach, with his spear held over his head.

In a way, and it was a strange kind of way, this was a big relief. Mau didn’t like having two plans.

“He looks very young,” said the ghost girl behind him. He spun around and there she was, dwarfed beside Milo, who was carrying a club the size of a medium-sized tree; in fact it
was
a medium-sized tree, without the branches.

“You should have gone into the forest with the others!” he said.

“Really? Well, now I’m coming with you.”

Mau glanced at Milo, but he’d get no help there. Since Guiding Star had been born, the ghost girl could do no wrong as far as his father was concerned.

“Besides,” she said, “it’s going to end up the same way for all of us if this goes wrong. Why aren’t they charging toward us?”

“Because they want to talk.” Mau pointed to the approaching man. He looked like he was young and trying not to be afraid.

“Why?”

The young man stuck his spear into the sand and then turned and ran.

“Maybe it’s because they have seen the cannon. I was hoping for this. Look at them. They’re not happy.”

“Can we trust them?”

“With a truce? Yes.”

“Really?”

“Yes. There are rules. Pilu and Milo will talk to them. I’m just a boy, with no tattoos. They won’t speak to me.”

“But you are the chief!”

Mau smiled. “Yes, but don’t tell them.”

Was it like this at the Battle of Waterloo? Daphne wondered as they walked down to the beach and the waiting group. This is…strange. It’s so…civilized, as if a battle is something that starts when somebody blows a whistle. There are rules, even here. And here comes Cox. Oh Lord, even the air he breathes needs a wash afterward.

First Mate Cox came toward them, smiling like someone greeting a long-lost friend who owed him money. You never saw Cox frown. Like crocodiles and sharks, Cox always had a grin for people, especially when he had them at his mercy, or at least where his mercy would be if he had any.

“Well now, here’s a thing,” he said. “Fancy seeing you here, young lady. The
Judy
got this far, then? And where’s old Roberts and his upstanding crew? At prayer?”

“They are here and armed, Mr. Cox,” Daphne said.

“Are they indeed?” said Cox cheerfully. “Then I’m the queen of Sheba.” He pointed to the upper slope, where the cannon were clearly visible. “Those guns are from the
Judy
, right?”

“I’m not telling you anything, Mr. Cox.”

“Then they are. A load of scrap iron, as I recall. That skinflint Roberts was too mean to get new ones. I know I’m right. First time you use them, they’ll split like a sausage! Seems to have put the wind up my jolly loyal subjects, though. Oh, yeah, I’m their chief, as a matter of fact. See my new hat? It’s quite the style, ain’t it? Me, king o’ the cannibals.” He leaned forward. “You got to be nice to me now I’m a king,” he said. “You should call me Your Majesty, eh?”

“And how did you become a king, Mr. Cox?” said Daphne. “I’m
sure
it involved killing people.” She had to make an effort not to back away, but backing away from the man never worked.

“Only one, so don’t be so hoity-toity. We’d just got a nice new boat courtesy of a bunch of Dutchmen of a charitable disposition, and then just after we’d chucked them over the side, a load of our brown chums comes up on us all in a rush, and we had a bit of an argument. I shot this big devil, all war paint and feathers, just as he’s about to flatten me with his big hammer—lovely gun, the cheese-eater captain had, far too good for a Dutchman, which is why I grabbed it off him before we threw him to the sharks—but anyway, I let a bit of air into Johnny Savage, lovely action that gun’s got, smooth as a kiss—and next thing you know, abracadabra, I’m king of ’em. And then it’s all off to a nice island for a big coronation feast. An’ don’t you look at me like that—I had the fish.”

He looked around. “Oh dear me, where are my manners? May I introduce to you the lads from what they call the Land of Many Fires? I daresay you’ve heard of them? As blackhearted a bunch of villains as you might find in a dozen chapels!” He waved a hand theatrically at a group of men, lesser chiefs perhaps, who had gathered around Pilu and Milo, and went on: “They are a bit whiffy on the nose, my word, yes, but that’s ’cause of their diet. Not enough roughage, see? Leave the clothes
on
, I tell ’em; the buttons’ll do you good! But they don’t listen. Nearly as bad as me, and I don’t spread praise like that around in a hurry. These lads here are the gentry, believe it or not.”

She took a look at some of the said gentry and, to her shock, recognized them. She knew them. She’d lived among them for most of her life. Well, not actual cannibals, obviously (although there had been all those rumors about the tenth earl of Crowcester, but dinner-party opinion picked up via the trusty dumbwaiter was that he had just been very hungry and extremely shortsighted).

These old men had bones in their noses and shells in their ears, but there was something familiar there, too. They had the well-fed, important, careful look of people who took care not to be at the top. A lot of government people like them had dined at the Hall. They had learned over the years that the top was not a happy or safe place to be. One rung down, that was the place for a sensible man. You advised the king, you had a lot of power, in a quiet kind of way, and you didn’t get murdered anything like as often. And, if the ruler started to get funny ideas and became a bit of an embarrassment, you just…took care of things.

The nearest one gave her a nervous smile, although later she realized that he might have just been hungry. In any case, if you took away the long hair, which was curled up into a headdress with a feather stuck in it, and then added a pair of silver spectacles, he would look
exactly
like the prime minister back home, or at least like the prime minister would look after a year in the sun. She could see his wrinkles under his paint.

Cannibal Chief, she thought. It’s such a nasty name. But she could see the polished skull on his belt, and his necklace was made of little white shells and finger bones, and as far as she knew, the prime minister didn’t have a big black club studded with shark’s teeth.

“Amazin’ resemblance, ain’t it?” said Cox, as if he’d been reading her thoughts. “And there’s one back there who could pass for the archbishop of Canterbury in a poor light. Just goes to show what a haircut and a Savile Row suit will do, eh?”

He winked his horrible wink, and Daphne, who had vowed not to rise to this sort of thing, heard herself say: “The archbishop of Canterbury, Mr. Cox, is not a cannibal!”

“He doesn’t think so, miss. Wine and wafers, m’lady, wine and wafers!”

Daphne shuddered. The man had an uncanny ability to look inside your head and leave it feeling grubby. Even on the beach she wanted to apologize to the sand for letting him tread on it, but the looks on the faces of the wrinkled old men with him made her heart leap. They were glaring! They hated him! He’d brought them here, and now they were under the barrels of cannon! They might get killed, and they had spent a lifetime not getting killed. All right, he’d killed the last king, but that was just because he had the magic gun stick. He smelled of madness. Tradition was fine, but sometimes you had to be practical….

“Tell me, Mr. Cox, can you speak the language of your new subjects?” she asked sweetly.

Cox looked astonished. “What, me? Catch me speaking their heathen lingo! Ugga wugga this, lugga mugga that! That’s not for me! I’m learnin’ ’em English, since you ask. I’ll civilize ’em if I have to shoot every mother’s son of ’em, trust me on that. Talking of ugga wugga, what’s all this chin-wagging about?”

Daphne listened out of the corner of her ear. War negotiations were going rather oddly. The enemy warriors listened to Pilu but looked up at Milo when they replied, as if Pilu himself was not important.

Mau was taking no part in things at all. He stood behind the brothers, leaning on his spear and listening. Daphne went to push her way through them and found she didn’t need to; cannibal chiefs shuffled out of her way as fast as they could.

“What’s
happening
?” she whispered. “Are they worried about the cannon?”

“Yes. They believe in single combat, one chief against another. If our chief beats their chief, they will go away.”

“Can you trust them?”

“Yes. This is about belief. If their god doesn’t smile on them, they won’t fight. But Cox wants them all to fight, and they know they should obey him. He wants a massacre. He’s told them that the cannon won’t work.”

“You think they will, though,” said Daphne.

“I think one will,” said Mau quietly.

“One?
One!
”

“Don’t
shout
. Yes, one. Just one. But that isn’t going to matter, because we don’t have enough gunpowder for more than one shot.”

Daphne was speechless. She finally managed to say, “But there were three kegs!”

“That’s true. The little one from your cabin was half empty. The others are full of gunpowder soup. The water got in. It’s just stinking muck.”

“But you fired a cannon weeks ago!”

“The little keg had enough for two firings. The first one we tried with what looked like the least-rotten gun. It worked. You saw it. But there’s a crack all along it now, and it was the best one. But don’t worry, we repaired it.”

Daphne’s brow furrowed. “How can you repair a cannon? You can’t repair a cannon, not here!”

“A trouserman might not be able to, but I can,” said Mau proudly. “Remember, you didn’t know how to milk a pig!”

“All right then,
how
do you repair a broken cannon?” said Daphne.

“Our way,” said Mau, beaming. “With string!”

“With str—?”

“
Waark!
Cox is the prawn of the devil!”

Even Daphne, mouth open to object, turned to look—

But Cox was quicker than all of them. His hand moved fast as the parrot glided over the beach. He cocked, aimed, and fired in one movement, three shots, one after another. The parrot squawked and tumbled into the papervine thickets above the beach, leaving a few bits of feather floating in the air.

Cox looked at the watchers, and bowed and waved like a musician who had just played a very difficult piano concerto. But the Raiders glanced at him as if he was a little boy who was proud of having wet himself.

Daphne was still trying to deal with string, but on top of that floated: Three shots in a row! The Dutch captain’s gun was a revolver!

“I think this is the time,” Mau said. “Pilu should have got them confused enough by now. Turn my words into Trouserman, will you?”

And he strode off down the beach before she could argue. He pushed his way into the circle before anyone knew he was there, and faced the Raiders.

“Who says our guns do not fire?” he bellowed. “Enough arguing!
Fire!
”

Up on the cliff, the unknown Papervine Woman, who had been crouched obediently over her green cannon, touched the slow match to the fuse and, as instructed, ran away very fast and stood behind a tree until the thunder had died away, and then ran back even faster. She ignored the cannon, which was under a cloud of steam, and looked at the lagoon.