The Devil's Eye (3 page)

‘Of course you do.’ Roth flicked the remains of his dead cigarette into a dark shrub. It glowed there. A tobacco tin was opened and Kenny heard Roth rolling another.

‘Is there anything else to report?’

‘I’m glad you asked,’ said Roth. ‘It appears he came ashore from a lugger. Won’t or can’t say the boat’s name.’ Roth lit the cigarette and puffed, pretending to
contemplate a thought as if it had only then occurred to him. ‘Somehow our man managed to avoid being finished off by the bush blacks. Now how does a man in a weakened state with a spear through his arm manage to get away from the treacherous devils, eh? Do you think the blacks would spear him and let him go?’

Kenny thought, in fact, that they might, but he said, ‘Where was he found?’

‘The man literally fell into the camp at Munburra. Now, does that seem plausible? Stumbling about in the bush up there for a week, and with a wound? You know the country.’

‘It’s possible,’ said Kenny. It certainly was possible to walk to Munburra from Cape Melville in a week. Why a wounded man would want to was another matter.

Roth continued. ‘He was discovered the day before yesterday.’

‘Sunday?’ said Kenny.

‘The Sabbath. The Lord’s day. Day of rest. Day of roast beef at Wilson’s.’

Kenny decided it was time to go. ‘I have to report to Sub-Inspector Cooper.’

‘If you must.’ Cooper said. ‘But we’re to head north as soon as possible.’

Kenny turned to face Roth, a dark shape against the hospital lights. ‘We?’

Roth said, ‘You can come too, if you like.’

Hazy stars hung above Cooktown; the air beneath them weighed heavily on the town so that even breathing raised a sweat.

Men reasoned that sleep was possible only by becoming dead drunk, and so it seemed to Kenny that half the town was drinking and the noise kept the sober half awake.

On his way back from the police station a giant bat flew across his path, and his horse, a gelding called Sydney, skittered sideways. Tired and furious with the day, he pulled the reins hard and felt immediately sorry for the horse.

His report, such as it was, to Sub-Inspector Cooper, had just ended. He hadn’t been able to find Ogilvy, who might have had more information about the Indian. Ogilvy was Cooktown’s Police Magistrate, Warden, Assistant Immigration Agent, Inspector of Pacific Islanders, High Bailiff and Deputy Sheriff, Customs Sub-Collector and Harbour Master.

‘No doubt he’s busy,’ said Cooper. Ogilvy had found the man, delivered by boat from the Starcke River, on the Cooktown wharf, and had taken him to the hospital and sent a note to Cooper.

‘There’s not much to go on,’ said Kenny. ‘In my opinion, sir. Certainly no need for Dr Roth coming along.’

Cooper, who subscribed to the drinking-as-anaesthetic theory, told Kenny there was plenty to go on and he didn’t give a damn about the Constable’s
opinion
; and if Dr Roth wanted to go on patrol he could damned well go and be damned. In fact, if Kenny could contrive to lose him along the way, so much the better. Drink? No?

Cooper wanted to talk about anything but the case of a damned speared Kanaka.

‘Two,’ corrected Kenny. ‘Indians.’

‘So?’

‘I’ll be getting an early start,’ said Kenny, taking out his watch.

‘Good-oh. And what do you think, Constable? Sandown going to hang?’

‘I hope not, sir.’

Cooper laughed and thumped the table, spilling his drink. ‘Me too. Balser’s betting he’ll swing. I have a shilling on his neck being saved.’

Kenny had several months earlier arrested an Aborigine called Sandown for killing one Peter Poulsen on the Chester River. Kenny had also brought the only two witnesses, Rosie and Lydia, down to testify at the trial. Cooper seemed to blame Kenny for the fact that Rosie and Lydia were now distracting his troopers. He had them cutting grass.

Cooper leered across the table and asked Kenny what he thought should be done with the women once the trial was over. ‘Do you want them?’ he added.

‘Want them, sir?’

‘Rosie speaks good English, as you know, and she can cook. If he wasn’t dead already, I’d have said
Poulsen’s a living testament to her culinary skill. Ha, ha!’ He poured another drink. ‘Didn’t you say your sister’s feeling the strain a bit out at the Eight Mile? Might be a help to her, eh?’

‘I can’t afford a cook at five shillings a month.’

Cooper’s stare wandered a little. ‘Is that what Roth’s asking for a permit?’

‘I believe five shillings is what you have to pay the black cook nowadays, sir.’

‘Good God. Another good reason to lose the Protector, right? Am I right?’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Kenny.

Cooper had leant across the table and said in a low voice, ‘Have you got yourself a girl? Eh? I believe you have. Can she cook? It’s a small town, Constable.’ He tapped his finger on the side of his nose.

As Kenny left the barracks he could still hear Cooper trying to sing ‘The Old Rustic Mill by the Bridge’.

Kenny stopped in again at the hospital on the way out of town. He walked through the front door and found Hope in the dispensary fluttering about like a moth.

He coughed and Hope jumped. She put a hand over her mouth and held a candle up to his face. Her eyes reflected the flame and her flawless skin glowed.

‘I startled you,’ he said. ‘Sorry.’

She looked around him and took him by the arm out to the verandah. ‘You should ring the bell.’

‘It’s a bit late for that, isn’t it?’

She seemed to recover; she was glad to see him, she said, but she kept looking over her shoulder. ‘Dr Korteum’s doing his rounds.’

‘I need to question the Indian again.’

‘Oh, the Indian?’

She looked disappointed he was pleased to see.

‘I’m afraid he’s dead to the world,’ she said.

‘Just for a few minutes.’

‘It’s not a good idea, Jack,’ but he led her to the room.

Hope put her candle down next to the darkened lamp, and they stood beside the bed listening to the man dreaming, the erratic breathing of someone being chased.

‘How is your father?’ she said.

‘He wants you to come out and see him.’

‘Is he ill again?’

‘No. I think he misses your company.’ ‘Oh. Should I come?’

‘If you like. Yes,’ said Kenny, afraid now that such a visit might put her off. ‘I get back from patrol in a week.’

Hope turned towards the man in the bed. ‘Can’t you wake him up?’ asked Kenny. ‘He’s insensible,’ said Hope. ‘Dr Roth prescribed laudanum.’

‘Well, light the lamp anyway.’

‘But someone’s coming.’

Even the unconscious man seemed to hold his breath as the footfalls passed the door.

Kenny had pressed his arm against hers and he felt the heat of her. The hospital odours swam around him and made him short of breath.

They listened as the steps faded. A man coughed somewhere, far away.

‘Why don’t you want Dr Korteum to see me here?’ asked Kenny.

Hope sighed. ‘He doesn’t want me to speak to you.’

Kenny was astonished. ‘Why?’

He felt Hope lean into him a little. ‘He says it’s not what Dr Roth would want, I suppose.’

‘Dr Roth?’

‘Yes. Dr Roth is a friend of my father’s.’

Kenny opened and closed his mouth in the dark and then said, ‘Well, what would your father think of me?’

He felt her eyes on him. ‘Jack, it doesn’t matter what my father thinks. I don’t want to talk about him.’

Kenny had many questions, but he felt her shudder. She stepped away and lit the lamp and the room appeared again in a thick, yellow light. The man had kicked off the bedclothes and lay prone, perspiring and naked. Hope reached for the basin beside the bed and produced a wet cloth.

Kenny held a hand up and leant over the man’s body.

‘What?’ said Hope.

Kenny said, ‘Something…’ but didn’t finish the sentence. He pushed the man’s head to one side and put his fingers under the pillow. He straightened, and then bent over the man’s face. ‘Is he really asleep?’

‘He’s had enough laudanum to sleep until noon tomorrow.’

Kenny grabbed the man’s jaw, prised the mouth open and reached in with his fingers.

Before Hope could protest, he stood back.

‘A tooth?’ she asked.

He held it, pure and white, under the lamp. ‘A pearl.’

The air became cooler as he rode out of town and a full moon lit the road. He had to slow his horse to a trot. By now, his sister and father would have fought themselves into a state of exhaustion and gone to bed, and with luck he wouldn’t need to face them in the morning. He would leave a note and be gone.

He’d given the pearl to Hope and asked her to put it somewhere safe, and to tell no one.

‘Evidence?’ she said.

‘I suppose so.’

He reached out and held her hand with both of his.

‘What’s the matter?’ she said.

‘When I come back,’ he heard himself say, ‘will you marry me?’

She pulled her hand away and put it to her mouth. He was alarmed when tears began to wash down her
cheeks. She put her other hand over her eyes then, as if trying to hide her entire face, and he didn’t think she’d ever stop sobbing.

He hadn’t planned it at all, any of it. He wanted to tell her this, to say he was sorry, but he had to ask again to be sure.

‘Will you marry me?’

Then she nodded, and let him kiss her so that his face was as wet as hers.

Now, he sat half asleep in the saddle, wrapped in the tropical night and wondered if it was a dream. He stared down the silver road and tasted her tears on his lips.

Aboard the
Admiral
, Maggie Porter watched a pink crescent of light at the world’s rim become a thin line before vanishing, as if a lid had closed over her. One by one the boats in Port Kennedy raised their masthead lamps, a small town lighting up on a black, liquid plain.

Chinese lanterns were being placed along the length of the jetty; the colours bounced gaily in the water. And there was a breeze.

She looked up at the Residence, a mile away, and saw no light yet in the windows. For all his complaining about caves, her father might have been a bat. She felt deeply sorry for him, alone up there, no doubt looking down from the verandah.

He’d accompanied her down to the wharf that afternoon, of course, and they said a rather stiff goodbye, Alice in her arms tugging the old man’s beard.

‘Hope will be here within a fortnight,’ Maggie had said as brightly as she could, but Douglas had shaken his head and stamped his cane with distress.

It had seemed a fine plan until she watched her father walk away, looking so much older, and frail—not the solid, towering figure she had known all her life. It broke her heart, watching him, but she was fetching Hope home for his sake. When he knew her reasons fully, he would be grateful.

He had left her with a letter for her husband, an admonishment no doubt to keep his wife and child safe.

There was shouting as the ropes were cast off. With Alice on her hip, Maggie now watched the coloured lights sway as the ebbing tide sucked the schooner away from the wharf and into the channel and the currents that swept from one side of the world to the other. The schooner’s sails flapped as she found the breeze.

The lanterns paraded past, a small constellation at the dark edge of the universe.

A few notes from a concertina drifted to her from the forward deck, cutting through the rush of water and chorus of creaking ropes. At that moment, it all seemed quite beautiful.

The effect, though, was spoilt when Poor Tommy de Lange appeared by her elbow and said, ‘God’s truth, Mrs Porter, isn’t this the end of the earth.’

He leant on the railing, smoking like a boy, flicking his cigarette nervously as the concertina started in earnest, a tune Maggie couldn’t catch.

Poor Tommy was her husband’s supercargo. He had earlier explained that he had been ordered back to Thursday Island by Mr James Clark to oversee the
provisioning of the
Admiral
, which was to be the fleet’s tender. The fleet had left in such a rush that some supplies had been overlooked, Tommy had said.

The concertina played on. Maggie now caught the tune, but couldn’t find the name.

‘
A sailor I’ve been for twenty years or more, Sailing the deep blue sea
,’ sang Tommy, neither a sailor nor a singer. ‘
To mates and captains always true
…I wonder, Mrs Porter,’ he broke off, ‘how much shell they have aboard by now. Down in Bathurst Bay.’

So, the talk of shell had started and she hadn’t left Thursday Island

‘I’m sure I have no idea, Tommy.’ Alice had put her head on her mother’s shoulder.

Poor Tommy lowered his voice. ‘Mrs Porter, do you know the real reason I came back?’

Maggie could hardly see his beardless face, as he still wore his boater.

He said, ‘Mr James Clark’s orders.’

‘Oh?’

‘I can’t say.’

‘Well.’

He whispered. ‘But some large pearls are also being fished down there, Mrs Porter.’

Maggie yawned. ‘The business of a pearling fleet is mother-of-pearl, Tommy.’

‘Of course, Mrs Porter,’ said Poor Tommy. ‘But they will talk about pearls when we get there tomorrow evening.’ He thrust the glowing end of his cigarette
south. ‘They might even show you the ones they’ve found. You being a lady.’

Maggie was sure Alice was now asleep, and had decided to go to her cabin, but she had to ask, ‘Who will show me their pearls?’

‘The captains of the other schooners. They get together most evenings, as you know. They will talk.’

‘About shell, Tommy.’

‘And pearls.’

She searched for his face in the gloom, but couldn’t find its expression. Women whispered about affairs of the heart; men talked breathlessly of pearls. Maggie supposed that it was because a pearl, like love, could transform a life in an instant. A fortune could hide in a pocket. Men fought over them and their trade in the fleets was secretive and often illicit.

‘Why would they show me their pearls?’

‘Captain Murray knows that ladies like pearls. If he has a few whiskies, he’ll trot them out for you, no doubt about it.’

‘And the band will play “Little Annie Rooney”.’

‘Ha ha. I don’t think so, Mrs Porter.’ The glowing end of Tommy’s cigarette danced in the dark. ‘You’ll be the only lady in the fleet and they’ll want to show you.’ He looked at her sideways. ‘I would.’ He tapped the railing. ‘If I’d found a good pearl.’

‘Thank you, Tommy.’

‘But, Mrs Porter, Mr James Clark wants to know about any pearls fished.’ He lowered his voice again.
‘He has orders for Captain Porter.’ He seemed to look past her, to where the coloured men leant on the railing, watching the island slip away.

She stared out over the channel to the receding lights of Port Kennedy. The concertina played and a banjo struck up. There was some laughing.

‘What would you do if you were given a big pearl?’ said Tommy. ‘Say sixty grains, round and hardly a dimple.’

Exasperated, Maggie said, ‘It would belong to Mr James Clark.’

‘But if someone was to give it to you, say. For a birthday present. Would you keep it or sell it?’

Someone was singing now, a deep Kanaka voice.

‘Sell it,’ said Maggie, listening to the song.

Tommy slapped the railing. ‘Mrs Porter! You’d sell a pearl that was given to you as a present?’ His cigarette fell over the side and they watched the sparks descend into the dark and vanish in the wake.

‘What would it be worth, a pearl like that?’ she asked.

Tommy whistled, staring out into the night as if the pearl was there before him on the black velvet of the sea.

‘Depends on the depth. The colour. A round pearl, flawless, might be worth one hundred pounds a grain. You could get six thousand pounds.’

‘I didn’t know you knew so much about pearls, Tommy.’

‘Mrs Porter! My father was a trader in New Guinea. Pearls and bêche-de-mer.’

Of course. She said, ‘I’m terribly sorry about your father.’

He didn’t reply. Poor Tommy.

The lights of Thursday Island were winking out as the schooner gathered way and rounded the point. She saw, at last, a lamp lit in the Residence before it vanished. The moon broke free from a cloud, and the sea and sky were vivid against the sharp edges of black islands.

The Kanaka repeated his dirge, the banjo played and a range of musical instruments had struck up below. Alice slept heavily now in her arms.

‘What would you do with six thousand pounds, Mrs Porter?’ asked Tommy.

Six thousand pounds. She could buy her husband his own schooner. He could be like the Outridges, Smiths and Clarks, with big houses in Brisbane or Sydney, managing their fleets by telegraph and steamer.

‘I have to put Alice to bed, Tommy,’ and she turned away, but at the door she felt sorry again for Poor Tommy and said, ‘Perhaps I’d buy a string of pearls and hobnob it in Sydney.’

She heard him chuckle and, lighting another cigarette, he said, ‘I know where you can get a fine string of pearls, Mrs Porter. If you really want one.’

‘Good night, Tommy.’ Maggie stepped out and carried Alice down to her cabin.