The Devil's Eye (9 page)

Dr Walter Roth appeared to be in a particularly jaunty mood as the horses picked their way over the stone country towards Munburra. Constable Jack Kenny had concluded that Roth actually
liked
the idea that someone had thrown a spear at him. Roth had given the impression at breakfast that morning that he’d both slept well and was looking forward to lunch.

Kenny rode behind Roth. The spear, a fine specimen that Roth identified as of the Koko-minni variety, was strapped to the side of the Protector’s horse, the bone tip pointing at Kenny’s face. The troopers had begged Roth to reverse the spear so that it wasn’t aimed at their backs.

Kenny had never before encountered wild Koko-minni, whose country was down towards the Palmer River. Hordes sometimes moved into Koko-yimidir country for payback, and the Koko-yimidir people were terrified of their western cousins. Wild Koko-minni had been blamed as a matter of course for any massacre of
Chinamen, and so their fearsome reputation was widespread.

Kenny found it difficult to believe that any Aborigine from the Palmer River was still alive. He supposed now that the spear, if he was to believe Dr Roth, was proof that at least one had survived, and the appearance of the troopers would surely be enough to remind that particular Myall of his imminent extinction.

The spear might well have had a fatal result. An attack wouldn’t normally go unanswered, but Kenny had not the time nor the supplies to be sidetracked.

Ahead of him now he noticed that Euro had dropped back beside Roth and their horses were swaying companionably, each on a wagon track. He envied Roth his ease in company and his apparent peace of mind.

Kenny himself was in a constant fever of anxiety. His mind could not leave one matter before landing upon another; his father day after day in bed, his sister weeping over the steaming copper, the small black girls in the lock hospital.

Hope Douglas, the press of her body beneath her austere dress, the antiseptic smell of her, and the promise she had made overwhelmed his other worries.

He hardly knew her and they now seemed an improbable match. She had both pushed him away and drawn him close, as if there was a part of him that repelled her and another that she needed. What had they talked about? His father; his illnesses and his recovery…

His father could no longer work the farm; his sister had to care for him, and so they lived in poverty. Jack had brought them north from New South Wales to live with him six months earlier, propelling them into the tropical summer. It was a mistake, of course. Sarah loudly resented every minute. His father weakened.

The officer’s quarters at the Eight Mile Native Police Camp were for a single man. He had dug his own trap and thrown himself in. And now he expected Hope to join him.

And what of her family? He had the impression of a rift, but she spoke only of a sister. Hope had been a midwife at the Thursday Island hospital before her sudden arrival in Cooktown. She read novels, so he had lent her his sister’s copy of
The Last Lemurian.
Their conversations were never very long. He could think of little to say. And that was the basis on which he’d proposed marriage and she had accepted. Still, the north was known for couples meeting, courting and marrying within a week.

Ahead, Kenny saw Roth roll a cigarette, a difficult manoeuvre on the trot. He struck a match and lit it, and then passed it to Euro.

Kenny discouraged such familiarity. Roth had no sense of discipline and even Corporal Bruce cast uneasy glances over his shoulder. Kenny was relieved when Euro rode ahead and shared the cigarette with the others.

Roth dropped back.

‘How long before we make Munburra?’ Roth’s wide hat bobbed up and down with the movement of the horse.

‘Tomorrow.’

‘What do you intend to do there?’

‘Ask questions.’

‘Here’s a question,’ said Roth. ‘Do you intend to marry?’

Kenny’s horse jumped off the path. Perhaps he’d given it an involuntary kick.

‘What on earth do you mean by that?’

Roth faced Kenny and showed his teeth for the first time, in what might have been an attempt at a friendly grin.

‘Dr Korteum at the hospital tells me that Miss Douglas is quite struck by some Native Policeman. She keeps dropping things in the dispensary. He won’t have her in the theatre any more.’

‘There’s a sure sign of wedding bells.’

‘Ha!’ said Roth. ‘Korteum’s worried that he’s going to lose his new nurse. I don’t blame him. Do you know how difficult it is to get nurses, let alone a midwife, to Cooktown? He wants me to assure him that it won’t happen and says he won’t be giving his permission in any case.’

Kenny closed his eyes.

‘I told him that I agreed entirely, of course,’ said Roth, still grinning, fishing for a reaction no doubt. Kenny decided to say absolutely nothing.

‘Don’t worry about Korteum,’ said Roth. ‘He’s German. Still, if you have anyone in mind, you’d better tell me. You would at least need permission from the Police Commissioner and I happen to know Parry-Okeden quite well. I can put in a good word for you, if you like.’

Kenny coughed. ‘What on earth makes you think I want to get married?’

‘I suppose a man’s thoughts turn to it, from time to time. I’m not inexperienced in affairs of the heart myself, and I can see that marriage can be a dangerous affair even if you know the girl’s background. Imagine if you knew nothing about her? Would her father approve? Wise to know something about her family, her upbringing, and her mother as well, because the daughter is the mother, if you know what I mean. A man would be wise to ask a few basic questions before committing himself.’

Kenny wearily turned and said, ‘For God’s sake, what’s that got to do with me?’

Roth coolly stared at him as they rode, before saying, ‘I’ll change the topic, if you like. Do you know, Jack, that the pearling fleets are fishing around Cape Melville? Just about every fleet in the north. I believe Cape Melville’s our destination.’

‘My destination. You’re leaving us at the Starcke.’

‘Quite. But it explains why our fellow Thomas happened to be up that way. Hundreds of men in crowded boats living together for weeks on end,
nothing to eat but fish and salted beef. Nothing to drink but gin. No wonder fights break out.’

‘I suppose so.’

‘Ever think of going to sea?’

‘No.’

‘No, you’re a man of the bush. Quite a different species. In fact, Hope’s sister married a sailor. A schooner captain. Captain Porter. I believe Maggie Porter is with her husband’s fleet now, at Cape Melville.’

Kenny looked sharply at Roth. He hadn’t known that.

‘I stayed with John Douglas late last year. I met Captain Porter. Formidable. Mrs Porter had gone to Auckland for the birth of her child but I saw her image. Striking resemblance to Hope, even though they’re only half-sisters. That was before Hope was sent south to Cooktown, of course.’

For the first time, he wanted Roth to keep talking.

‘Why was she sent south?’ Kenny asked, before biting his tongue and turning away.

He could feel the Protector’s gaze at his back, before Roth eventually said, ‘You’ve already popped the question, haven’t you?’

Kenny spurred his horse forward.

The anchor chattered into the clear waters of Bathurst Bay and a moment later a plume of grey mud blossomed at the surface, to be carried astern by the tide. The crew was on deck, the manoeuvre into fickle winds in shallow water needing sails to be set, trimmed and furled precisely. Captain Porter issued a stream of commands, but the crew under Daniel Jones was practised and anticipated each task.

Also unnecessary seemed to be Poor Tommy’s running between bow and stern, looking over the side and repeating the orders and replies.

‘Six fathoms here.’

‘Six fathoms!’

Those not involved with the work were at the bow watching the chain run out as the
Crest of the Wave
settled into its new anchorage.

Porter called ‘Belay’ and Tommy repeated it to anyone he could see, even Maggie, who was near the bow with Alice on her hip.

They had moved closer to shore because the wind had sprung to twenty knots and was swinging erratically from the south to the east. The black mountains of Cape Melville no longer sheltered the schooners as they had. To make matters worse, a swell from the open sea curved around the cape and cut across the bay, making the schooners roll.

This behaviour annoyed the captains, who Maggie suspected were bored. They all decided to move closer in, under the cape, not for the comfort of those aboard, of course, but for the smooth shipping of shell and the offloading of supplies the next day. They didn’t want any valuable cargo lost or crew crushed.

The
Silvery Wave
, the
Sagitta
and the
Admiral
followed and all four soon lay in the relatively calm, shallower water a mile from shore.

Maggie stared at the hills and believed she could now
feel
the heat on her cheeks from those great black boulders. Their proximity had subtly changed the air pressure, as if someone had walked unseen into a room.

She turned away from the black hills and watched the activity on the three other schooners.

The crews began calling out to friends across the water, while Captain Porter, followed by Poor Tommy, went about the ship’s deck checking the sails, sheets, the leeway, the sun, the wind, the tide, the endless forces that the elements exerted on the schooners, even when at rest.

Maggie waved to Captain Jefferson of the
Silvery Wave
, who raised his hat in reply.

There was a companionable feeling amongst these four vessels, more so than between the other fleets from Thursday Island. The crews were happy.

Over the horizon, about thirty-five miles to the north-west, amongst the Claremont group of islands and the reefs at the top of the vast sweep of Princess Charlotte Bay, were the more disparate pearling fleets of the
Meg Merrilees
,
Olive
,
Tarawa and Aladdin.

The captains of these fleets were also friends with the Porters, but not necessarily with each other.

Steve Clark of the
Olive
was the son of Mr James Clark; Edwin Munro of the
Aladdin
had been Porter’s best man at their wedding.

Bingo Thompson was the master of the
Meg Merrilees
, an old blackbirding brigantine with an unhappy crew who seemed to run her aground at least once a year.

David Jones of the
Tarawa
was pleasant company ashore, but a tyrant at sea, reputedly.

Those four fleets were fiercely and sometimes violently competitive, and the sixty luggers they worked between them employed the hardest men.

Better to be in Bathurst Bay, far better, it seemed to Maggie, where the captains shared their employer and also a genuine fondness for each other. They even treated Perez from the
Admiral
with something approaching equality.

Apart from these large fleets there were, scattered along the coast, scores of cutters and luggers owned and leased by businessmen, or pearlers who’d made enough money to buy their own boat, or French poachers from the New Hebrides. Many of these gathered south of Cape Melville in the more exposed waters surrounding the Howick and Lizard groups of islands.

Porter told Maggie that there were perhaps one hundred and fifty pearling vessels between the Claremonts and Lizard Island, more than a thousand men at sea, and his wife the only white woman amongst them.

‘It must be very lonely for them,’ said Maggie.

‘Eh? Hardly. The damned fools get drunk every night.’

As evening settled around them, a cooler wind revived Maggie’s spirits. The guilt over her sudden departure from Thursday Island had lessened. She felt sure again that she was doing the right thing and that, once Hope was plucked from Cooktown, her anxiety would vanish entirely.

The baby that stirred inside her was the physical expression of the future and she felt a thrill to think of it now. Even Poor Tommy’s intrigue with pearls seemed a lark; and she felt a festive air, a lightness of spirit, amongst the crew as Saturday approached.

The luggers would begin gathering in the bay late the next day, and on Saturday after the work was done
and everything stowed, Bathurst Bay would be ablaze with hurricane lamps and filled with the music and laughter of three hundred men from every nation under the sun.

‘Will this wind die down for the weekend?’ Maggie asked her husband by the wheel.

‘Can’t say.’ He was examining the sky.

‘But it’s the wind, William. You can always say
something
about the wind,’ she said, but Porter didn’t appear to be listening.

The setting sun painted the world yellow. Porter put his eye to his glass and followed the eastern horizon from Flinders Island to the cape.

‘We don’t want it to back off too much,’ he said, absently. ‘We need the luggers here in good time.’

‘I suppose a fair wind is the thing, then.’

Without taking his eye from the glass he said, ‘Exactly.’

The day’s harvest, a pathetic twenty pairs of shell, lay gasping in the dark at the stern of the
Zoe.
Willie Tanna sat alone on the cabin roof, his crew at the bow, their cigarettes glowing red and a fine spray drifting across the deck.

During the evening the sea had changed from a grey corrugated iron to a leaden black, and the
Zoe
was now anchored behind Barrow Island for protection. Its masthead lantern threw a wide arc across the night sky.

Willie welcomed the cool air, but the oysters were stubborn. As soon as they started to open wide enough for the cork, a sheet of spray made them clamp tight.

The plan had been for Sam to occupy the crew and Willie to search for pearls. The lugger was rolling so violently that putting cork and wires between lips was like threading needles when drunk, and the oysters closed their mouths resentfully whenever Willie approached.

‘Open them up,’ whispered Sam, suddenly by his side.

‘A day’s work wasted.’ Once opened, the shells would have to go overboard.

‘Well, leave them, then.’

But they sat and stared miserably into the dark, their backs wet from spray. The sea scattered the moonlight to the wind and Willie yearned for his bunk.

‘Imagine buying our own lugger,’ said Sam. ‘No more breaking our backs for someone else, or cooking for whites.’

‘I thought you liked the Douglas family.’ Since becoming a diver, Willie could afford to rent a room for the lay-up. But he dreamt of Hope every night.

‘The old man wants to argue all the time. He’s been raising his cane at me and forgets my name. I can’t take another lay-up there. Not with Hope gone now.’

Sam suddenly leapt off the cabin roof and crouched over the largest shell. With a practised hand he pushed the blade of an oyster knife between the lips and twisted. The oyster sprang apart. Willie saw Sam’s fingers roam around it, exploring the flesh, feeling the smooth walls of the shell. Sam straightened and with a flick the shell went overboard.

He did the same with a dozen more, working fast. Eventually Willie, calculating the impossible odds and seeing his day’s hard work go overboard, said, ‘Let’s turn in.’

Sam said, ‘One more,’ and had the shell opened within seconds. He stood for a moment.

‘
The revenues of the wicked is trouble
,’ Sam announced to the dark sea and tossed the last shell away.

Willie sighed and went below, lighting the lantern in the skipper’s cabin, which he was forced by tradition to share with his tender. Sam came down a short time later.

‘Forget about the pearl,’ said Willie, leaning back on his bunk and putting his hands behind his head. ‘I’m beginning to think it’s bad luck.’

Sam came close. He raised a finger to his lips and then held a pearl so close to Willie’s face that it eclipsed the moon that shone through the open skylight.