The Devil's Eye (4 page)

At dawn the next day, Constable Jack Kenny was thumping the door of the store with the flat of his hand and yelling, ‘You’ve got customers.’

It was quiet for a moment, except for the throb of insects in the trees. The smell of mud rose from the river at his back. Then there were footsteps, and a man with no shirt appeared at the doorway. His bleary eyes roved over Kenny’s clean khakis and then, with obvious alarm, saw the blue shirts and white peaked caps on horseback behind him.

‘Troopers. Din I tell ya?’ the man said, apparently to himself.

It was mid-morning at Jensen’s Crossing, on the road to the northern goldfields. The store was a shack with a corrugated piece of iron propped up outside, warning travellers: LAST CHANCE TILL MUNBURRA.

Kenny’s early start had been delayed when he discovered his camp keeper was still drunk and that the camp store was low on luncheon beef, Jenkin’s essence
of coffee, and tobacco—the three items he needed for a happy patrol.

‘Come in then, come and bloomin’ take what I got …Hello, who’s that? More bloomin’ customers before breakfast? Tell ‘em to bugger off.’

Kenny turned and saw a figure on horseback come up behind the troopers. The horses skittered as a cloud of white dust settled around their hooves. The troopers saluted as the man dismounted.

‘My gawd,’ said the storekeeper. ‘Is that the Protector of Binghies?’

Kenny’s anxiety was complete. Dr Roth had caught them up.

Kenny and Roth said nothing to each other until they were back on the road, the troopers riding well ahead in single file, beyond earshot.

As they crossed the Endeavour River, Roth said, ‘You’re staring at me.’

He wore his wide-brimmed hat but had taken off his jacket and looked as if he was popping down the street to lunch.

‘You should go back,’ said Kenny.

‘Why?’

‘We’re crossing the frontier.’

Roth looked around and sneered. ‘The frontier.’

The hooves clattered across the causeway, the river a trickle this far up. A flock of lorikeets took flight.

Kenny said, ‘We’re north of the Endeavour River now. This is the patrol area.’

‘I’ve been on patrol before.’

‘Yes, but Sergeant Whiteford wasn’t looking for a murderer.’

‘There you go again. Don’t we need a body first? You don’t have a name, much less a reason to believe someone’s dead.’ Roth reached into his pocket and took out an already rolled cigarette, lighting it with what Kenny thought was exaggerated nonchalance.

‘Anyway,’ the Protector continued, ‘do you know what the definition of the Queensland frontier is? Officially?’ He paused, but only for a moment. ‘You. You are the so-called frontier. Wherever
you
are marks the line between civilisation and savagery, because that’s the line you are employed to patrol, protecting one from the other. It’s the reason why the Queensland Native Mounted Police exists.’ Roth sat back, enjoying himself. ‘In fact,’ he added, ‘without you, there’d be no such thing as a frontier.’

Kenny felt himself rise to the bait, unable to stop. ‘And when I’m in Cooktown?’

Roth looked over and said, as if he was now the perfect authority on the subject, ‘The frontier goes with you.’

‘Poppycock.’

‘The last time you walked down Charlotte-street you wore the khaki. All the women stared and all the men stepped aside. I saw you. You are the personification of the frontier.’

Kenny told himself to keep his mouth shut.

The troopers rode ahead, the white men behind, and each man except Roth had a packhorse.

‘This is no picnic, Dr Roth,’ Kenny said eventually.

‘Oh? What’s the luncheon meat for, then?’

Kenny ordered the patrol to canter and the dust rolled past them in grey waves.

The country opened out away from the river, good grazing land at this time of the year, except that the ticks consumed the cattle that the blacks did not and the sea of fodder therefore went begging.

Kenny glanced at the Protector, who still seemed relaxed and rode well. He might not be put off so easily.

Roth said, ‘John Douglas is making inquiries about our man Thomas.’

‘Who’s Thomas?’ asked Kenny.

‘Our man at the hospital. Or possibly the other cove.’

Kenny flinched and his horse did a little skip sideways. ‘You have a name?’

‘Didn’t I say?’ said Roth. ‘Another telegram arrived from Thursday Island. That’s why I was late.’

‘And who’s the second man?’

‘That’s all. I thought you’d be pleased.’

‘Jesus Christ!’

‘No need to swear.’ Roth pretended to look offended.

‘Anything else you’ve forgotten to tell me?’

‘Roth looked up at the wide pale blue sky for a while, and then shook his head.

‘Is Thomas a first or last name?’ asked Kenny.

‘No idea. I doubt it’s even his real name. Ever heard of an Indian called Thomas?’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ muttered Kenny, ‘whether it’s real or not.’

Roth puffed on his cigarette for a while and then turned to the constable. ‘But it does matter that they exist, doesn’t it? You’re the one who concluded it was “murder” based on a premise that someone’s been killed. If he’s been killed, he must have existed.’

‘A complaint was made,’ said Kenny. ‘That’s all I need to know.’

‘So you’re saying that even if this story’s been made up, the patrol is legitimate.’

‘Absolutely. Preventive force,’ said Kenny.

‘Preventive force?’

‘The object in sending out patrols is principally that the hostile blacks may be deterred from murder and felony.’

Roth said, ‘Who told you that?’

‘Dr Roth, have you read the regulations?’

‘What regulations?’

Kenny fantasised for a moment about pulling his revolver and shooting the Protector dead. The troopers wouldn’t tell, and Cooper had virtually ordered it.

‘Jack,’ said Roth, perhaps reading his mind, ‘don’t be angry. We happen to be on the same side.’

‘Really?’ Kenny shifted in his saddle, trying to control his fury. His horse was stamping the dust in
agitation. ‘Really? You said that the Native Police exists to protect civilisation from savagery. I suppose that you, the Protector of Aboriginals, exist to protect savages from civilisation.’

‘Calm down.’

‘You’re the frontier too, Dr Roth. As much as I am.’

Roth nodded along, matching the rhythm of his horse. ‘Couldn’t have put it better myself.’

‘But we are not on the same side, are we?’ Kenny managed to keep his voice steady. ‘You are on one side of this frontier and I am on the other.’

Roth was silent for a long time, before saying, ‘I see what you mean. What’s for lunch?’

‘Dr Roth, why are you here?’

‘To be frank with you,’ said Roth, flicking his cigarette away, ‘I’m tired of sitting on my arse all day.’

‘Isn’t that what you’re doing now?’

Roth laughed. It was a genuine laugh this time, and it took the edge off Kenny’s anger.

Roth said, ‘And this incident that you’re investigating: I agree that it’s important to make a show. For the blacks as well as the whites. I understand that, Jack.’ Roth took both hands off the reins to search for his tobacco tin. ‘Anyway, I’m coming with you as far as the Starcke River. I’d like to call in on the Reverend Schwarz at the Cape Bedford Mission.’ Roth held up his hand before Kenny could protest that Cape Bedford was well out of his way. ‘I’ll get there myself. I’ve arranged for the pilot
boat to pick me up at the mouth of the Starcke the day after tomorrow.’

‘So you’re not coming along just to keep an eye on me?’

‘What made you think that? I have the utmost faith in your abilities as an officer in Her Majesty’s Queensland Mounted Native Police Force. Of which I am, technically, a member. In fact, your superior officer. What’s the motto?’

‘There is no motto.’

‘Isn’t there? There should be. The Canadians are supposed to say, “We always get our man,” or some such nonsense.’

‘The Barrow Point blacks have a motto: Spear the white man in the back.’

‘Is that so? To be frank with you,’ Roth continued, unfazed, ‘I can’t let the opportunity pass to collect some artefacts. Ethnologically speaking.’

‘Is that all?’

‘And I thought you might enjoy the company.’ Kenny was sure then that Roth was there for none of those things.

The track to Munburra was well trod and Kenny had hoped to reach the diggings that night. Because of the late start, and now that Roth’s horse was already beginning to tire, that would be impossible.

Roth had fallen silent and Kenny slowly regained his
composure. He desperately needed time to himself, to consider the consequences of his marriage proposal.

He had offered; Hope had accepted. It knocked the wind out of him every time he thought about it. Of course he wanted to marry, but he hadn’t fully considered the consequences and he was sure that neither had she. And now, under the sun, the future seemed as grey and unpromising as the distant hills. She’d see it too, and would surely change her mind. He shared an officer’s quarters, a four-roomed shack, with his sister and ill father. Well, she knew that much. The salary of a mounted police officer was a pittance.

And he knew nothing about her, except that she was John Douglas’s daughter. Dear God, what would they think of him, and his presumption?

‘Are you all right, Constable?’ said Roth. ‘You look a tad preoccupied. Leave something behind?’

Kenny glanced at the Protector and thought he might say something more, but Roth’s gaze drifted away into the distance.

Roth was right about one other thing: the native police were the frontier of the civilised man. But he appeared not to appreciate the real danger into which he was riding, and Kenny didn’t trust a man who had no fear.

Ahead was a country of wild Myalls who knew exactly what they were about when they terrorised strangers. So while Roth made a show of being untroubled, his confidence was misplaced.

Kenny knew the dangers better than any man, even though at that moment he was sure that the most fearful thing he’d ever done was ask for a girl’s hand in marriage.

While Kenny stewed, Roth smoked as if the world hadn’t changed, and the troopers rode ahead, the heavy black barrels of the Martini-Henry rifles slapping the horses’ withers, urging them forward.

A pearling schooner was the worst place to keep a secret, but every soul aboard seemed to keep at least one and that day Maggie Porter was burdened with two of her own.

She had come on deck that morning, as Alice slept. She watched the sails in the distance, the pearling fleets now spread along the grey coastline. The luggers always had a sail up, wherever they were. From a distance it had seemed a romantic occupation, this floating and hovering on the horizon. Now she saw them with a breathtaking clarity.

She went to her cabin and sat on her bunk, picking up the pencil.

Dearest Hope
,

As I am told Thursday (tomorrow) is a mail day for the fleet, I will acknowledge your welcome letter of the 2nd February by the
Tokio Maru.
It was not kept waiting long;
Alice and I arrived from Auckland shortly after. How saddened I was at your news of the row with Father but I have learnt from him that it may have been over a man. Such a silly thing! and no doubt a misunderstanding, as such things normally are. I am afraid that Father has grown more frail since you left, so you must forgive him, although I know from experience it is difficult.

She was interrupted by shouts and looked out the porthole. A lugger was coming alongside. The
Admiral
seemed to slow but made no attempt to stop. There was yelling as someone jumped aboard with a cheer and the lugger hove away.

Maggie went back to her letter.

I am writing this aboard the schooner
Admiral
and will hopefully this evening arrive on Captain Porter’s schooner, which I am told is now anchored behind Cape Melville.

Hope, I am bringing Alice down to visit you! It will be sometime within the next week or so, either by steamer or perhaps I can persuade Porter to bring us down by the cutter mid-week. Please don’t fuss. We will stay at Wilson’s.

I have news that you must tell no one.

Maggie became aware of a low but intense conversation outside her cabin, a few feet from where she sat. There were few places for a private conversation on a schooner,
especially one as small as the
Admiral.
She recognised Tommy’s voice saying, ‘Joe Harry!’

She turned an ear towards it, but couldn’t catch another word, so she went to the open window. Tommy was back on the upper deck. She heard him open his tobacco tin and strike a match.

‘What’s the news, Joe Harry?’ she heard Tommy ask.

‘Good news and bad news.’

‘Only good news, please.’

‘One Jap, he got diver’s disease,’ said Joe Harry.

‘That’s not good news.’

‘Yes it is. He a
Sagitta
diver.’

She heard Tommy affect a sigh. ‘I mean, is there any
news
?’

Joe Harry laughed. ‘How much you pay for a big pearl?’

‘Show me.’

‘Tsk. You not have enough money for this pearl, Mr Tommy.’

‘Just show me.’

There was some rustling, a tin opening, and then Tommy whistled.

‘A hundred pounds,’ said Joe Harry.

Tommy coughed and he hissed, ‘Joe Harry! Are you joking?’

‘How much?’

‘Twenty.’

‘Mr Tommy! You have only twenty pounds? Perhaps I wait. Sell to Mr Thomas.’

‘Fifty.’

Joe Harry sighed extravagantly. ‘Fifty. But if I bring you another like this one, you give me one hundred pounds.’

Tommy was quiet for a full minute. ‘Are you sure there are others?’

‘I know the boys have others. We wait.’

‘What about Bowden’s man, Thomas?’

‘That thieving Indian might not come back.’

‘I damn well hope not.’

Maggie heard Joe Harry laugh, and then their footsteps.

Maggie sat down. It seemed Poor Tommy de Lange was in a hurry to be poor no longer.

If a master pearler, even her scrupulously honest husband, was ever asked about pearls, he’d say that pearls themselves were not his serious business.

He would explain that it was a common misconception; however, it wasn’t the pearl but the pearl
shell
he sought and from which he earned his living, the mother-of-pearl harvested and sent to London to be made into ornaments for the wealthy, pearl-handled knives and pistols, inlaid writing desks and buttons.

Pearls? A pearl was a windfall, perhaps found in one in every two hundred or three hundred shells, and most of those pearls would be small and baroque,
misshapen, of limited value. Only one in a thousand shells produced a decent round or tear-shaped pearl that could be worth hundreds or thousands of pounds.

The pearling master would say that no pearler could run a pearling fleet by relying on pearls.

But it was apparent to Maggie that pearls obsessed every man in the fleet.

While Alice slept in her cot, Maggie went on deck.

‘What the devil are you doing this far up the bay?’ Perez yelled past her as she emerged from the cabinhouse. ‘Oh I beg your pardon, Mrs Porter. I was speaking to Joe Harry down there.’

On the lower deck, a big Kanaka was shirtless and tying together the ends of a bundle.

Perez shouted, ‘And why the devil couldn’t you wait until Saturday?’

‘No tobacco, no gin, no shell, boss. And you were passing. Praise the Lord!’

She heard Perez cough and spit.

A chain away was a lugger Maggie recognised as the
Vision
; one of the fleet her husband managed. She looked about. There were many sails in the distance and a couple nearby. She saw the tall bare masts of a brigantine to the west.

Maggie went to the steps that led to the lower deck and called down, ‘What’s the news, Joe Harry? Where’s the
Crest of the Wave.
?’

Joe Harry had picked up the sack. His lugger was returning for him, but was still some minutes from coming alongside. His smile faltered a little, but then widened hugely.

‘Mrs Porter! She’s still down there under the cape. No news.’

‘Joe Harry! Surely something must have happened. You’re always good for a story. Tell me some news.’

Joe Harry looked around but Poor Tommy was staring out to sea.

‘Further down south,’ said Joe Harry, waving a hand towards the bow. On the horizon Maggie could just make out the black peaks of Cape Melville. ‘Maybe something bad.’

Poor Tommy was leaning on the railing, his foot tapping nervously as the
Vision
approached to collect its skipper and tobacco and bottles.

‘What happened?’ Maggie asked.

Joe Harry, glancing quickly at Poor Tommy, said, ‘A lugger. Bad thing happened to the crew?’

Maggie said, ‘I hope it’s not the
Zoe
.’

Joe Harry stared at her with a fixed smile, as if trying to work something out. ‘Willie Tanna? Why you worried about that Kanaka, Mrs Porter?’

‘Willie and his tender work for my father,’ she said. ‘In the lay-up.’

Joe Harry digested this. ‘Not Willie Tanna’s boat, Mrs Porter. I know Willie. I saw him five days ago.’

Maggie nodded. The
Zoe
’s tender was a Kanaka
called Sam Motlop, whom she had known for some years. Sam had once been recommended to her father. The Kanaka had turned out to be a dreadful nag who infuriated Douglas, but, despite the threat of beatings, the man kept coming back, year after year. Maggie believed that for all his complaining her father enjoyed having a servant he could argue with.

The
Zoe
’s skipper, Willie Tanna, also worked at the Residence during the lay-up. He was a big handsome black man, but charming and mission-schooled…A vision came to her of Hope sitting in the garden watching Willie work. Dear God! The thought of Hope having her fling with Willie Tanna took her breath away. It would explain her father’s fury, but no! It was unthinkable. She’d put it out of her mind until she saw Hope. Or Willie Tanna himself. Then she’d know.

Joe Harry was speaking. ‘This was a filthy bêche-de-mer lugger, take some Binghies out to the reef, leave the men without food and take their women off to an island.’

‘Joe Harry!’ shouted Perez from behind the wheel.

‘It’s true. The skipper and his mate they go back to the reef a week later and ask the men, “Why you no get slugs?” Binghies say, “No eat slugs,” so they leave them there another week and when they come back again and ask why no slugs, Binghies say, “We eat slugs, we so hungry,” so the skipper says, “Bugger you,” and takes them back to the Barrow Creek.’

Joe Harry smiled brilliantly, and continued. ‘On way back skipper says, “No tobacco for you, you bad boys,” and the skipper and his mate laugh at them. So the Binghies throw them overboard.’

Maggie put a hand to her mouth.

‘Is that a true story, Joe Harry?’ yelled Perez.

The
Vision
was alongside now, rocking dangerously in the wake of the schooner. Joe Harry stood at the schooner’s gunwale and called out to one of his crew, ‘Dick!’

A man as black as any Aborigine that Maggie had seen came to the side.

Joe Harry said, ‘The Binghies from Barrow Point tell Dick Dead-eye here. Two men come ashore. Dick says when you get to Bathurst Bay, be careful getting water and wood. They still angry.’ He passed a finger across his throat.

‘When was this?’ asked Perez.

Joe Harry seemed to say something to Dick in pidgin and then looked at Perez without waiting for a reply. ‘Hard to say.’

‘Well, what was the name of the boat?’ said Perez.

Joe Harry asked Dick, who hardly seemed to respond, but Joe shook his head, grinning from ear to ear.

‘Not ours,’ he said. ‘A bêche-de-mer boat.

‘Get back aboard your lugger now!’ yelled Perez.

Joe Harry threw the sack to Dick, and then waited a heartbeat before leaping gracefully onto the heaving deck of his lugger, which steered away immediately.

Maggie watched as the
Vision
’s skipper turned and continued to smile widely at her as the lugger sped away.

A dozen eyes could have been watching Maggie at any one time, but Captain Perez at the wheel was now absorbed by the sails and the sea. The rest of the crew were mostly idle but smoking up forward on the lower deck, the schooner’s run down the coast blessed by a consistent northerly.

Maggie went to the far railing and looked away from the land, into the vast sweep of the Coral Sea. She breathed the giddy sea air, her fingers touching the white muslin over her stomach. The swell of the sea remained hard and unbroken as it followed the schooner. Between the high sails was the sun, ringed by a faint halo on a hazy pale-blue, rice-paper thin sky.

Poor Tommy de Lange appeared at her side. ‘Mrs Porter,’ he whispered. ‘Look.’

Maggie turned to face him as he held up his hand. Standing close and smelling of tobacco, he rolled the pearl between his thumb and finger.

‘See,’ he whispered.

To see, Maggie Porter had to tilt her head back and then lift the brim of her white hat. The tip of her nose was red and her lips were already cracking.

‘Perfect,’ said Maggie.

‘Mrs Porter!’ said Poor Tommy. ‘No pearl is perfect.’

But he spun the pearl this way and that. He spun it once more and then let it roll down into the palm of his hand. He held it up to her face and she saw that Tommy’s palm was criss-crossed with tiny blue-black cuts and that the pearl was faintly, exquisitely dimpled. She felt the heat of it on her cheek.

‘Once skinned,’ said Tommy, ‘it will be
almost
perfect.’

‘Skinned?’

‘Like an onion.’

‘Tommy…’ she began, but the smell of the sea and the schooner became suddenly overwhelming. The pearl rolled a little with the schooner and collected a fleck of tobacco from Tommy’s hand.

‘I shouldn’t be showing you, Mrs Porter.’

‘No.’

‘Mr James Clark’s orders. But seeing you’re Captain Porter’s wife…’

She pulled her head away, ‘Thank you, Tommy. That’s enough,’ and took a step backwards, her hip bumping against the railing.

The pearl hovered for a moment in his hand and then disappeared into a pocket, and Poor Tommy de Lange looked around, stepped behind the deckhouse and disappeared to the lower deck.

Maggie Porter turned to the railing and, with one hand holding down her hat, retched delicately, quietly, and, she hoped, unseen over the side of the
Admiral
.

And looking down into the sea she allowed herself to believe for a moment that the appearance of the pearl had confirmed her pregnancy; that it was a sign from God that she had a perfect white pearl growing inside her.