The Devil's Eye (20 page)

Between the decks of the
Crest of the Wave
, inside her cabin, Maggie Porter now stood with Alice in her aching arms.

Sometimes she wedged herself into the corner to ease the cramps in her legs, but when she did that, her head banged against the wall with each flight and crash of the schooner. In the end, it was better to stand, feet apart, in the middle of the cabin and ride the sea.

The schooner twisted in its agony, water springing in fountains from the walls. When the lantern went out, Maggie imagined that they were plunging to the bottom to be crushed.

Alice had ceased crying and now hid her head under her mother’s arm. Maggie hummed lullabies and called softly to God. She prayed for her babies, the one in her arms and the other inside her.

But above all, she prayed for the torture to stop one way or another. She was dreadfully seasick.

The door opened and Porter stood there as if he had arrived from another world. He had a lantern and it lit the side of his face as it swung in crazy circles in his hand. Blood ran down his neck.

‘You’re hurt.’ Her voice was so hoarse she could hardly hear herself.

‘I fell.’

‘My husband doesn’t fall.’

‘Maggie, what the devil are you doing?’

‘Trying to stay alive.’

He went to her and put his arms around them both. ‘Alice?’

‘She’s not crying.’

‘Let’s sit you down.’

She laughed, a short stab that became a sob.

He looked around dumbly. The floor had an inch of water rolling around it. Everything was wet. ‘Maggie, I have to tell you…’

‘Don’t you dare say that it’s looking bad,’ her voice a croak. ‘Don’t you dare.’

‘I don’t—’

‘No!’ She was furious. She held Alice up to him then, and the little girl opened her eyes and stared up at her father.

He grabbed Maggie by the elbows as the floor heaved beneath them, and bending down he said to his daughter, ‘Kiss dada.’ He put his cheek to her mouth.

‘We’ll be right,’ he told Maggie, but he didn’t smile.

‘I’ll never forgive you, William, if anything happens to my babies or to you.’

After a moment, he stepped back mouthing, ‘Babies,’ and stumbled towards the door.

‘William!’

He took a swaying step back towards her, his face lined with anguish.

‘What were you thinking, coming down here? With Alice and—’ He stabbed a finger at her stomach. ‘You can’t be. Not now.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘You, Alice…should not be here!’

She nodded and the tears coursed down her face.

‘I’m so sorry,’ she repeated.

‘Babies!’ and he choked on the word and then gathered her and Alice into his arms and held them so tight she thought he might crush them to death. He buried his head in her neck.

When he pulled away from her, he said, ‘Is this why you came? You couldn’t send me a letter? Or tell me yesterday?’

‘I was going to tell you tomorrow,’ she said.

‘Tomorrow?’ he said, unhooking the extinguished lantern and replacing it with the bright one he carried. ‘I’ll be back when I can.’

And then he was gone.

Some obscene force lifted the schooner and Maggie staggered back into the wall.

‘
Bye baby bunting
,’ she sang, ‘
Daddy’s gone a hunting
…’

An eternity later, Poor Tommy de Lange stepped through the cabin door and was thrown to his knees. He stayed there and leant heavily against the wall for support.

Lightning blazed through the portholes.

‘Mrs Porter!’ said Tommy, picking himself up. He came closer to her, put a hand on Alice’s head, and said in Maggie’s ear. ‘If the eye of the storm passes over us, the wind will change from south to north.’

‘The devil’s eye.’ It was barely a whisper.

‘If that happens, we’ll be run against the shore.’

‘What?’

‘The wind will drive us onto the beach and we’ll break up.’

‘Oh my God.’ Maggie fought to block out the unbearable image of Alice in the water.

‘Captain Porter says that if there’s a lull, then I’m to put you and Alice in the whaleboat, and row you ashore. In the lull. Do you understand?’

She croaked. ‘Where will Captain Porter be?’

‘Well, he’ll stay, of course, and try to save the schooner. But he says it likely won’t come to that.’

‘Then why say it at all?’ she mumbled, unheard.

Maggie, leaning close to Tommy so he could hear her above the roar, said, ‘Please check Mr Jones and the Japanese diver.’

Tommy launched himself down the heaving corridor. When he returned, the schooner threw him at her feet.

He stood and tried to say something.

‘Dead?’ asked Maggie.

Tommy shook his head, ‘Not yet,’ and went out into the terrible night.

The bellow of the wind and the sea drowned the thunder, although the lightning continued to play across the cabin’s walls. Even the snap of the wooden walls as they twisted, the creaks and groans of the schooner being tortured, were eventually submerged by the noise of the storm.

Through it, though, Maggie imagined she heard the sharper crack of gunshots.

She was on her knees. She could barely remember when, but at some stage, finding she could stand no longer, she had lowered Alice back into her wet cot. Everything was wet now, anyway. Water erupted from every seam in the cabin, and the floor was awash.

Maggie had stretched her arms over the top of the cot. Alice’s cry was hardly more than a croak, even if she put her ear close. She knew she had to pick her up again.

She was only aware that Tommy had come below once more when he fell face first onto the floor beside her.

When he raised himself, he shouted, ‘Captain Porter wants you to move into his cabin.’

He looked down with wonder at the soup of things washing across the floor and made his way to Porter’s cabin.

He reappeared and said, ‘It’s drier. I’ve lit the lantern there.’

She nodded and tried to release her grip on the cot, but her arms wouldn’t obey her. Her fingers came away painfully.

Tommy picked up Alice, a rag doll, barely moving, and they shuffled on their knees across the floor.

Porter’s floor was wet, but not flooded. She sat in the corner and cradled Alice. It was a little quieter, but it wasn’t otherwise much of an improvement. Each jolt sent pain through her back. Tommy wedged himself into a corner and by some miracle rolled and lit a cigarette.

‘I have to go back up,’ he said, but sat there smoking for a while, before crawling away. She almost cried out for him not to leave her, but she couldn’t find her voice.

Maggie longed to lie down, but it was impossible. Dear God, there was no escape and no relief.

The schooner rose as if picked up by some giant and then dropped. The back of her head snapped against the wall. Alice in her arms found the energy to scream. Maggie, dazed, stood with the support of the wall and stepped into the centre of the cabin. With one hand around Alice and the other on the wall for balance, she rode the waves with the schooner and prayed again that her aching legs could sustain her.

John Douglas woke with the clock striking twelve. He woke fully alert from a dream he couldn’t recall, but which had left him breathless and troubled.

The room fluttered with a light that matched his heartbeat. It was oppressively hot and he lay there for a while gasping, praying for a breeze, before rising to sit at the end of his bed.

Nothing stirred in the garden or on the water. The Ellis Channel reflected the electrical discharge and the dark shape of Horn Island.

The distant storm seemed to have reached some feverish peak and had moved to the south. Was Maggie or Hope watching the lightning too, from a safe distance? Or were they beneath it? When he had prayed for his family to be reconnected, was this God’s answer?

The last day of his seventieth year had begun. Three score years and ten. Time was up.

Certainly his time had passed. He’d never take a seat in the Chamber of Dignitaries. He was sure now that he
was as forgotten and unsung as Palmer was when he died, and good riddance, but still, who wanted to be forgotten entirely? Even Palmer deserved a nod towards the fact that he once existed.

Well, good luck to all his old parliamentary colleagues. What did they know of him now, and what had twenty years of sitting in their city clubs taught them about their fellow man?

He coughed, long and loud enough to wake the leghorns.

Staring out across Torres Strait, Douglas felt sure now that he would die on Thursday Island.

He thought about abandoning sleep altogether and going to his study to finish his letter, but his body was leaden and after some time of willing his legs to move, he simply lay down again.

He imagined God tapping out a telegram, a distant electric message telegraphed from cloud to sea and to the ceiling of this bedroom.
Urgent.

Eventually he fell into a deep sleep and in the early hours of the morning the lightning abruptly ceased, the dynamo had stopped, and his blessed breeze arrived. It began to rain.

The four troopers packed themselves into the rear of Kenny’s tent, their backs pressed against the canvas through which the rain and twigs still flogged them.

Everything was now wet and six men steamed over Kenny’s candle.

Pompey sat miserably on the ground at the end of Kenny’s cot, anchoring one corner. When a tent peg had lifted, all the troopers had thrown themselves at the flapping canvas to stop the wind snatching away their last refuge. Now the cord was tied around Pompey’s hand, on which Kenny had ordered him to sit.

A branch came crashing down somewhere and Corporal Bruce, his rifle between his knees, seemed to want to rush out and start shooting.

‘What’s that?’ asked Euro, beside Roth.

‘A tree falling in the forest,’ said Roth, lighting his cigarette from the candle.

‘No, you were humming something.’

‘Was I?’ Roth hummed again, and started to sing. ‘
I owe ten dollars to O’Grady.’

The wind rose to a shriek.

‘I have a song, too,’ said Euro, when Roth finished. He abruptly started singing. Corporal Bruce, of all people, joined him. Their voices rose against the wind.

Kenny had thought the native songs without melody, but this one filled the tent and the refrain seemed to become a conversation between the troopers, who all joined in. A common song. Roth even tried to sing along.

When they finished, the shrieking of the storm re-entered the tent, a terrifying sound.

Kenny, then, started roaring ‘
I’ll take you home again, Kathleen
’.

He sang it to the end, ‘
There all your grief will be forgot
,’ and on the final note the troopers together raised their arms, ‘Wah!’ and at that moment there was a mighty crack and Pompey vanished, a blow from behind knocked Kenny into the earth, and all went black.

Jack Kenny would have been happier if they’d left him lying beneath the demolished tent, but someone dragged him out by his boots, back into the wild world.

He lay there stupid in the rain and wind for some seconds, and then tried to stand. He couldn’t. The lightning revealed the men in odd jerks, kneeling,
lifting the tree branch off the tent and removing Pompey. They laid the trooper on his back. He didn’t move.

Around them streamed branches and leaves under the incessant roar.

He looked about for Roth and found him sitting with a wet cigarette wrapped from the corner of his mouth along his cheek. The Protector’s face shocked him deeply. He saw bewilderment; something he never thought Roth could possibly display.

Unidentifiable things were flying amongst them, and Kenny tasted salt water. A great gush of foam shot over his head.

A branch bowled Corporal Bruce over and rolled off into the night, and then he saw Bruce crawling, apparently searching for his rifle. They were too close to the trees. Kenny walked at last—crablike to the flattened tent to see if he could find his coat. The canvas thrashed around like a felled bullock and he managed to grab a blanket before the wind picked the tent up, lines, pegs and all, and threw it high and away.

Kenny crawled to each man and grabbed his shirt in turn, and gestured that they should follow him. Euro tried to grab Pompey’s body, but was whipped by branches and had to leave him.

They crawled across the clearing. The horses were gone.

When they reached an area Kenny hoped was out of the range of falling trees, he motioned for them to sit.

They sat and he had them all grab a piece of blanket and hold it over their heads, a pathetic gesture, but it gave them the illusion of shelter.

They sat there, each breathing the other men’s breath, unable to speak or be heard, but praying for the night to end.

Willie Tanna clung to the boulder. He managed to get a hand into a crack, just as the sea came up to his neck and tried to suck him down. He rested his cheek against the rock, swearing to God that he’d never let go of land again.

There was a continuous roar around him, the sea and the wind indistinguishable, but the rocks provided some protection and he could hear the snapping of wood and the more distant yelling of men.

A lightning flash showed Charley and Sam still on the deck of the
Zoe
, incredibly just yards away.

‘Jump for God’s sake!’ roared Willie, and he heard the crew who had managed to scramble above him call out for their mates to jump. Sam had untied Charley from the spar and held him in his arms. Charley was conscious and shaking his head. The sea withdrew, sucking the
Zoe
down and further away, and after one vivid lightning strike all went black. Willie found strength to get a foothold and heave himself higher. He
pulled his body up until he heard the sea returning with a roar, a great wave lunging behind him, and a great splintering. The lightning flickered on and he looked down. The
Zoe
’s hull was beneath him and had cracked like an egg, Charley and Sam both on their knees, the deck awash. Then the light went out again.

In the darkness Willie thought he heard Charley screaming in Malay and when the light came back there was no one, nothing resembling men or boat; just a jumble of planks and a spar.

‘Sam,’ screamed Willie, but he could hardly hear his own voice. The darkness fell again and the storm reached a new pitch.

And then he felt a giant, warm hand scoop him off his rock and carry him down.

Groping blindly in the water, he wrapped his arms around the first thing he felt. White flashes showed planks and rope around him, keeping him afloat, but they might as easily grind him to pieces. The rocks were beyond reach. The sea surged and up he went with it, but he couldn’t swim through the flotsam.

There was a spar near his elbow, its far tip grazing the rocks, and he let go of the plank and reached for it just as a wave broke on his head and drove the splintered end of something into his back. He held onto the spar and dragged himself desperately forwards until he felt solid rock beneath his feet. His fingers scraped a
raw boulder and he hauled himself up, again, out of the surging water.

Willie climbed blindly, up to salvation. He grabbed a foot and heard Sam scream, ‘Let go, you damned devil,’ and another foot came down on his head.

Willie managed to keep his grip. ‘It’s me, you idiot,’ he shouted, and crawled up beside Sam. ‘Keep going.’

Sam shook his head. ‘Leg,’ he said.

Willie looked down and saw the leg open to the bone at the knee. He hauled himself past Sam and then grabbed an arm. ‘I’ll pull.’

The sea rose again to Sam’s waist. In the sudden dark Willie thought he had him, but his grip slipped and Sam was plucked off the rock. When the light came back he saw Sam in a crevice, screaming, until the next wave covered him completely. When the wash and the flotsam fell away, Sam was still there.

Willie threw himself off the rock and into the water, and as the next wave lifted him to the crevice he grabbed Sam’s shirt, and managed to get a grip on the rock before the water could carry them both off again.

He could do no more, though. His strength had gone, and he heard the next wave gathering in the darkness. All he could do was hold on to both the rock and Sam.

And then there were hands under his arms and grabbing his shirt, his hair, and he was dragged up the rocks. Water crashed onto his back, but he was being propelled up until the hands let go.

He slid down between two boulders. Sam tumbled next to him and groaned.

Willie looked up. The dark shapes of men collapsed on the rocks above them. The sea was below. He was alive.

Eventually, he managed to prop himself up. He leant back, the rain falling onto his face in a torrent. He drank.

Next to him Sam started yelling, and Willie leant over to shout, ‘Even if you’re dead, can’t you just shut up for once?’

One by one his men slid down into the hollow. One of them brought a shattered plank and they wedged a piece of timber between the boulders and laid Sam on it. They bent over him and with their foreheads touching they imagined for the moment that they were safe.