Rogue Raider (24 page)

“No problem,” assured the Master of the Sea. “The
Batavia.
She has been beached for some weeks. Twenty-four hours in the sea and the timber will swell and she will be as good as new. The old lady will become a young girl.” He mimed curvaceous breasts on his own board-like chest, threw back his head and laughed. They would find him a crew.

Lauterbach paused. It was one of those moments in a man's life when he is poised on the edge of a cliff and must decide whether to jump or not, knowing he will either fly or plummet to his ruin. The British would by now have boarded and searched the Hong Kong vessel and found no Blaamo. Pale Potter would sooner or later talk, as much from innocence as malice and anyway it was too good a story to keep to himself. It would not take them long to get on his trail and even the Dutch would not want him wandering about where they could not keep an eye on him. Already, they would be checking the sailings from Surabaya and maybe wondering about that very substantial lone Swede, Lars Renquist, who had appeared from thin air. One fear battled with another to create an illusion of courage. He was an experienced sailor and knew the risks of the open sea. But half a dozen islands, dotted in a neat line between Sulawesi and the Philippines would offer some sort of safety net and at this time of the year, the weather should be good. The wind was from the right quarter and the journey would take only a few days. With a bit of luck all would be well. But maybe he had used up all his luck.

As soon as they left the harbour, two large sharks attached themselves to the party and Lauterbach could see at once, from their reaction, that only one of the five crew was a seasoned salt. He pointed at it with his pipe and grinned and giggled as a sailor would. A sign of good fortune, he urged. “Nasib baik. Nasib baik.” Sailors always saw everything as a good omen. They were wrong about that. The two others cowered in the bottom of the boat in terror and cried as much water back in as they bailed out.

The sea rapidly assumed a sullen, leaden aspect and clouds began to boil on the horizon. Soon a furious storm lashed the vessel with buffeting wind and rain and nasty waves that seemed to twist and mangle the creaking boat whose seams still gushed with water. Only with four bailing continuously could they now even keep the vessel afloat. In the flashes of lightning that ripped the black sky, they could see the rubber fins of the cruising sharks, still patrolling around the boat as if impatient for what they knew was already theirs. The wind plucked Lauterbach's hat from his head and whirled it off into the water. One of the sharks thrashed to the surface, grinned and gobbled it down as an appetizer. Slightly shaky, Lauterbach reached for his hip flask of the finest Javanese brandy. There was no need to do this sober. He unscrewed and splashed the raw spirit down his throat. The balers looked up at him appropriately balefully. He stared emptily back, glugged more. This was white man's business. At least the little
Batavia
was flying in the right direction and the seams were tightening. As the wind abated, there came a dreadful calm that left them motionless on a blistering metal sea for one whole day. They sprawled in the wet bottom and groaned and tried to shade their heads and eyes but everywhere was reflected heat and brightness. Sleep was impossible and Lauterbach now regretted the brandy that sucked all moisture from his eyes and mouth. They chewed on cold rice that bound their bowels in a vice-like grip and Lauterbach guarded the water barrel with his revolver, doling out sips with grim egality for them and a slight generosity for himself. He was bigger which gave him both the greater need and the power to enforce it. And that night the storm came on again, dousing them in water, mocking their thirst and heatstroke of the day, till their teeth chattered and their skin cracked open into boils and seeping sores and they clung to any handhold and rode the churning waves miserably. The blow lasted for three more days and when they were so weak and exhausted that they no longer cared to live, an island appeared on the starboard bow and the wind left them, once more, becalmed. Lauterbach cajoled then screamed and threatened so they would take up the paddles but they just stared at him brokenly and hollow-eyed. So he brought out the brandy that was poured out into cupped hands, and cigars that they chewed rather than smoked – and they were revived. At noon they pulled into the port of a small town where a handsome woman of Polynesian appearance and Western self-assurance looked down on them in polite surprise.

“Welcome,” she called. “Have you come far? You must be Captain Lauterbach. Do come and meet my husband.”

Chapter Eleven

Dear Mr and Mrs McCoy
,

I should like to thank you once again for your generous hospitality to a humble stranger in Mindanao. It was so kind of you to offer me the chance to enjoy everything that your lovely house had to offer. I will always remember that wonderful English tea you gave me, with its many delicious and civilised constituents that would have tempted any man's tongue, especially one who had been for so long deprived of the comforts of land. I should particularly like to thank the beautiful Mrs McCoy for serving me with such deep personal attention and showing me the many beauties of the island, especially her lush personal plantation. I still recall with pleasure the fertility of those unploughed soils and the privilege of lying on my back and watching your great, ripe coconuts, bursting with sweetness, swaying above me in the breeze.

Yours sincerely,

Captain Julius Lauterbach

He had perhaps gone a little over the top in his postcard – the
entendres
were not sufficiently
doubles –
but it was at one and the same time a denunciation and an act of shared intimacy for she would have to read it out loud to her husband and could adjust the content as she thought fit. The fact was that McCoy was totally blind and knew only what his wife wished him to know.

Their bungalow was a sort of tropical version of a New England house, lots of white-painted clapboard and a wrought-iron terrace buried under luxuriant creeper built out over the sea. On it sat a very old white man with a long, white beard and matching white cataracts in his eyes, before him a table with a glass of beer and an ashtray. Lauterbach stared at the beer. His tongue crinkled and shrivelled at the sight of it.

“Darling,” said the woman touching the man lightly on the shoulder. “We have a guest, Captain Lauterbach. You remember I read to you about him in the paper, the German sailor who escaped from Singapore.”

The man smiled and turned sightless eyes on someone slightly to Lauterbach's left. “Sit,” he ordered, running his hands through the mass of his white hair, smoothing it down. “Lauterbach is it? America is, as yet, entirely neutral in that little affair of the war so I may extend a hand of judicious welcome.” No hand was extended. “We thought you'd be passing through here. It's the only way really from the Netherlands East Indies. Bring the man a beer. He must be parched.” The accent was New England too, more of an agreeable twang attached to normal English than something inherently American. Whatever the accent, Lauterbach loved the words. They sat in silence as the woman vanished and swiftly reappeared with a tray. His legs shook as she bore the foaming bottle towards him, condensation trembling on the glass.

“Oohaagh. Oh my God.” As he drank, the shaking reached his hands and he thought he might cry. On the boat, at the worst points, he had dreamed of this moment so often that he could scarcely believe it was real and he feared it would disappear in a puff of smoke before he could get it down.

“Thank you. Oh thank you,” he gasped. “You must forgive my manners. Yes I am Julius Lauterbach. Whom do I have the honour of addressing? Are you an American colonial official?”

The man looked out over the bay, or at least seemed to and chuckled. “No not an official exactly. My name is McCoy and I have a certain influence in these parts. In fact I own most of these parts. You are exhausted I see. Might I suggest you wash and rest yourself and join us for tea a little later? Tea is the only civilised meal. I imagine tigers eat dinner and breakfast. Only white men take tea.” It was said the way requests are made by those used to giving orders. Tea then. Lauterbach would take tea like a white man.

“I first married the sister of Queen Emma of Hawaii,” explained McCoy in a droning voice. “A formidable woman in every particular, part white but still very beautiful and in every way a pagan at heart. The Queen devoted herself to good works, schools, hospitals, that sort of thing. Her sister was more interested in making money and we suited each other very well. In those days that was my own principal preoccupation. It was on her death that things became a little crowded in Hawaii what with all the new people coming in and the Americans taking over everything. Many of them were men of very little breeding or talent. People such as myself, the relics of the old order, were supernumary, so I found a new wife and moved out here where the world has been, on the whole, very kind to us.”

He fed greedily, great manly bites of unmanly fairy cake, sucking up crumbs from his hand with a whooshing noise. The house was all heavy furniture of uncompromising wood but overlaid with flowery female flummery. Every wall had its samplers and macrame, every table doilies and runners, every chair embroidered antimacassars, a mass of congealed labour and empty time. They were in a cluttered, old-maidish parlour, full of china dogs and gee-gaws arranged on a huge and hideous sideboard, sitting round a table like an altar with a great starched linen tablecloth and a caricature of an English tea set out. Matching teapot and cups with saucers, little sandwiches, small fussy cakes, toasted muffins, a big chocolate confection melting slowly into a mess in the centre. McCoy continued to feed. Lauterbach nibbled. It seemed to him that Mrs McCoy was looking at him more than mere politeness required. He had been too long without relief. He appraised and appreciated the long, shining hair that swung with each movement, the full, curvaceous form, the flawless brown skin. Her teeth were very white against her tongue which, itself, was provokingly pink. She dispensed tea with cafeterial efficiency and flashed a smile at him as she pointed sugar tongs.

“Captain Lauterbach, you look like a man who has two big lumps.” She leaned over, dropping them into his cup, showing smooth golden cleavage, “Is there nothing else I can tempt you to? Crumpet?”

He leaned forward in turn. Dare he risk it? He realised that it was not shame that might prevent him but only fear and fear must be faced down though his heart was throbbing and sweating like the boilers on the old
Emden.
He looked across at smiling, sightless McCoy, stared her brazenly in the eye and brushed his hand lightly over her shoulder, pointing at the chocolate cake, so that – if it turned out that way – it could be just an accident. “Might I have a little slice of that? It looks absolutely delicious.” His face glowed in shades of sweaty beetroot. His chin, now unused to the military scraping he had subjected it to, was red and inflamed.

“Of course.” Said very coolly. She did not withdraw but rubbed herself against the hand, like a cat. It slid down under the stiff bodice. Most Hawaiian ladies wore an unflattering shapeless tube gathered tightly with lace at the neck, a missionary conspiracy against sexual excitement. Mrs McCoy, luckily, opted for lighter American fashions. She arched her neck and groaned as Lauterbach insistently gripped her left nipple between finger and thumb, slowly increasing the pressure. Her black eyes grew wide with arousal.

“Mmm.”

“Stop that. I know just what you're up to. Sheer wickedness!” McCoy slapped his fist on the table.

Shocked and shamed, Lauterbach snatched his hand back as if scalded.

McCoy chuckled. “She loves that chocolate cake, Lauterbach, makes straight for it every time. I always have to remind her that tea has a moral dimension. No sticky buns until you've filled up on nourishing bread and butter. You and I will be very lucky to get any. She herself behaves as if she's not had any for months. If I were you I would get solidly stuck in to the good stuff right away before it's too late.”

Lauterbach had her top off and was licking the luscious right breast which she was thrusting brazenly between his teeth.

“Nhhgah! It is true,” he panted archly. “That once you have tasted chocolate, vanilla has no flavour.”

He gobbled brown flesh, slurped, gobbled again.

“As a man who has travelled much, I wonder if you have noticed the palm trees here, Captain Lauterbach?”

“Gnng. What? Oh … They seem to flourish. Everything here strikes me as remarkably fecund. Many in Manado are afflicted with the blight.”

He tongued away gently trying not to leave crumbs around the aureola – which would be as impolite as grease on a cup – and admired, at the same time, his own sensitivity of feeling.

“Your voice sounds a little strange, Captain Lauterbach. Not a chill I hope. Pray take care to cover yourself up well. In this climate foolish exposure can have terrible consequences.”

“Excuse me. My manners again, Mr McCoy. Talking with my mouth full. It is so long since I had such a civilising and delicious experience” he stared into her cat's eyes. “In fact I am very warm.”

Sweat gushed down his face. He grasped round behind her skirt and wrestled desperately with the complicated eyelets, built for the Braille-educated fingers of a blind man, pulling it down roughly to reveal a nest of jet-black pubic hair and curvaceous golden syrup groin and bent to his task, cushioning her buttocks with his hands as he shoved his face into the coarse underbrush.

“You are very quiet my dear. Might I have a drop more tea?”

She lunged against the table and squealed, grasped the tinkling pot and reached across to slop it roughly into his cup, nearly burning him. “Oops. There, my love. The milk is at your elbow.”

McCoy groped and poured, guided by the sound of splashing as a man might pee in the dark. “The point about the palm trees,” he continued, placidly stirring, “is that I imported them specially from Hawaii but they seem to have a rude vigour here that they quite lack at home. There is something in the soil that affects them strangely. We get two drops of fruit a year and even the husk is thicker and stronger than the native variety. I have scattered my seed all over the island.”