Wake of the Perdido Star (22 page)

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Authors: Gene Hackman

BOOK: Wake of the Perdido Star
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Given the right conditions, Paul said, a fuse could be designed to discharge underwater. It had something to do with boiling the saltpeter.
“No, it's the whole mess you boil,” Jack answered. “Nitrate, sulfur, charcoal, and all. I've heard it was done during the war, when the army and that Bushnell fella were experimenting with mines and submarine torpedoes in Boston harbor to break the Redcoat blockade.
“My father said there was nothing to it if you made a slurry of the gunpowder and coated it on the fuse. The fire burns from bubble to bubble, using the trapped air to keep the flame alive.”
“Did he ever do it?”
“Never had a cause to. But if he said it can be done, I'm sure it's possible.”
They worked on the project all day. Finally, after boiling a concoction in the one pan not being used for collecting water, they dipped some twine in it and hunted for a proper container to use as a bomb. They settled on an apothecary jar, which they filled with dry powder and sealed with candle wax. Homemade fuse in place, Jack and Paul took it to a shallow reef near their cove where they had seen a bunch of fish congregating. They lit the fuse and tossed it amongst the fish. It sparked mightily and kept burning in the water, making a strange trail of white smoke as it sank, and finally fizzled out. Failure.
Next they tried a drill from the remains of the salvaged surgeon's kit. Although it proved useless for Mancy, it contained a trephination bit for releasing fluid from beneath the skull in head wounds. They used it to drill a hole in a deadlight, wrenched from ship flotsam, which they then crammed full of black powder. “Shove it in there as hard as you can, compress the hell out of it,” urged Jack.
Paul looked at him doubtfully. “Isn't that a little risky?”
“Come to think of it, be sure to use wood to ram it. Metal against metal could create sparks and that would be a problem.”
“Thanks for the warning.” Paul tossed aside the bent iron spoon he had been using for the task.
They finished the tamping, inserted the string through the hole, waxing it in, and finally tossed the latest design into the turquoise water. There was a muffled whump. Within seconds a number of small reef fish flopped on the surface. Their only catch. A semifailure. It appeared this approach would be inadequate for feeding the men, even if they perfected their technique.
That evening around the fire, Jack offered to reconnoiter one of the neighboring islands at night and perhaps do a little foraging.
“Ya figger the savages won't know yer coming 'cause it's dark out?” Quince asked. “No, Jack, for lawd's sake I need you too much to lose you on some fool's errand. They know we're here—no way they couldn't, with our fires and all. Christ knows why they haven't shown up . . . for better or for worse.”
Paul grinned sardonically. “Greet us or eat us, the poor devils can't make up their minds.”
“Enough, Paul. See if you can rig some more shade cover from that sailcloth, lad.”
“But,” continued Jack, “if they know we're here, what's the harm in paying them a visit?”
“No.” Quince sounded irritated but Jack knew the question needed answering; for the others as well as himself. “We're a force to be reckoned with here, even with only one gun. We've cutlasses and we're together and there ain't but one way of gettin' at us. We split our forces and we've lost an edge.”
“What if they're friendly?”
“They might be, but I'll believe that when we're shaking hands and dancing the minuet with their ladies—not till then.”
Jack knew Quince was right, but patience and inaction never came easy to him, even when warranted, and he chafed under the mate's restraint.
“Another thing, Jack. Those fires are probably from natives all right, but what if they're not? Malay and Chinee pirates range the coast of Asia only a few days' sail from here and they probably set up for their raids somewheres in these waters.”
Jack nodded his understanding. Paul added, “Could be Europeans, too, Mr. Quince. The John Company's packets also range these parts. The bastards could dye us black and sell us like they do anyone else they can't exploit in some other way.”
“Enough. Get that sail rigged for shade.” Jack hid his smile when he heard Quince mutter, “Sometimes that lad can be insufferable.”
Quen-Li proved invaluable in procuring what little vegetable matter the group could consume. He obtained tubers and green pulpy leaves scattered in the mangrove flats and made a mush that provided some nourishment even though it tasted “like something that had been et twice before,” as Coop put it. The Chinaman seemed to thrive on the gruel himself, being one of the few survivors showing no signs of physical or mental distress. Jack was increasingly intrigued with the calm strength of this man, certain there was something in his past that had little to do with a life spent slopping gruel for sailors.
Jacob seemed to be taking a turn for the better. His hand, soaked in hot salt water by Quen-Li and lanced when necessary by Mentor, was healing. Again, their surplus of gunpowder helped them in odd ways. From the start, Mentor had insisted on pouring some of the powder into the open wound. When it worked, even Jack became convinced the old folk tale was right; no infection was setting in. Paul, particularly intrigued with the development, opined that maybe the sulfur or potassium nitrate, which made up significant portions of the powder, was responsible.
Jacob's leg had not been broken as originally feared. He started hobbling around a bit, and the swelling went down. The young man's physical improvement seemed to help him combat the profound depression he had been suffering over the loss of his finger.
Life without a little finger was no big deal, his older mates assured him, with their own brand of rough humor. Klett, a sailor of Scandinavian extraction, had a particularly interesting perspective to share with the boy.
“Jaysus lad, could of been yer pecker ye lost. Think of it. Hell, peckerless ye'd of been better off dead—but a finger? Lad, it's nothing. Just got to reach farther back to wipe yer arse.”
“Eloquently put, my dear Klett,” Paul said, laughing. “Such soulful commentary, sublimely expressed . . . perhaps you'll consider a career in letters once we've made it back to civilized land?”
“Stuff it, Paul, 'fore I cuff you one,” muttered Klett.
“Easy,” Jack added. “Paul's just letting his tongue get ahead of his brain, which is his habit. I believe your views have been a true comfort to Jacob.”
To Jack, Klett was another interesting sort. Aboard the
Star
, he had paid little heed to the huge Scandinavian, who was naturally quiet and a bit simple. During and after the storm, however, the man distinguished himself in Jack's eyes for his courage, positive fatalism, and great strength.
Their second week on the island found them all surviving and in reasonable health, but no significant improvement in their situation. The constant rain allayed their biggest concern—fresh water. Food remained a problem, particularly fruit and vegetables to keep scurvy at bay. The lagoon teemed with fish, but their ability to catch them was still marginal. And most of the men had some degree of festering sores, particularly on their feet. The overall energy level, which had risen from survival of the wreck, was dropping. Jack could tell Quince was concerned. What if the natives finally made their appearance and the men gave an obvious impression of helplessness?
But Jack was not as alarmed. Although their position was still precarious, the shock of being shipwrecked was over and they clearly weren't in any immediate danger of dying of thirst, hunger, or hostile savages.
Jack began to venture further away from camp to investigate their surroundings. On a sunny afternoon with exceptionally calm water, he paddled out to the
Star
on a raft he constructed from several wood planks that had been washed ashore. He climbed the
Star
's half-sunken mast to get a better idea of the extent of the surrounding islands. They were on an extensive archipelago. Jack could see no end to the island chain, a flat expanse of larger and smaller land bodies, fringed by a reef that flashed white with a necklace of breakers all along the windward side.
Who were the people who made their homes in this strange land? Jack wondered. Would they be helpful or hostile? Would they look like the natives from Polynesia? He had heard these lands were less known and more primitive than Fiji and the other southern isles, but he knew that was conjecture. He had been told that only a few whalers and missionaries had visited the islands in these parts and, as Quince had said: “whalers—half of 'em lie and the other half don't tell the truth . . . on the whole, though, they're more honest than missionaries.”
When Jack described to Paul what he had seen from the mast, his friend said he suspected that they were on an atoll, maybe the Pelews or something north of them. The absence of any volcanic peaks meant they were probably not in the eastern Carolines but further west, “damn near to Asia,” as Quince had put it.
“The water is real shallow where it's light green, inside that wide fringe of breakers you described,” Paul said. “Probably no more than ten to thirty fathoms at most. The dark blue, outside the white surf, is Davy Jones, thousands of fathoms—we're lucky the
Star
made it through before sinking, else she'd be way beyond our reach . . . in this life anyway.”
Jack didn't want to think about it. “How long do those books say it takes for all this coral to build up? You said yourself the water's thousands of feet deep all around it.”
“Ah, my friend, that's a question isn't it?”
Jack listened to his learned mate tell him of the latest ideas coming
from folks called “uniformitarianists,” especially some fellow named James Hutton who wrote a book called
Theory of the Earth
.
“They'd say the base of these islands is volcanic,” Paul told him. “It rose above the surface once, then eroded from the forces of wind and surf, then coral built up on its remnants as it sunk.”
“Wind and surf? That'd take thousands of years!”
“More like millions. Yes, if you take the Bible literally, you'd have to believe the earth was formed in about 4004 B.C., according to the Ussher-Lightfoot chronology.”
“Ussher-Lightfoot?”
“It's two fellas, religious types that added it all up from the Bible. But the point is you'd have to believe the world was created by God just as you see it, as there wouldn't have been enough time for much to change in less than 6,000 years; unless there was a whole series of catastrophes, huge floods and the like. But those other people say that everything happens in gradual changes, little by little over the ages. Anyway, whoever's right, I've got kitchen duty tonight . . . see you at the trough.”
Paul left, and Jack sat on a piece of driftwood reflectively moving his toes through the sand. He tried to imagine the sand being just broken-up bits of coral and rock and what it meant to live in a world millions of years old. Did it make him more, or less, important? Did it make what happened in Cuba to his parents insignificant, in the grand scheme of things?
He wished that thought hadn't entered his head. “There is compensation,” Quince had told him. How? How could there ever be enough? The blackness in his heart threatening to take over, he quickly jumped up and started to walk down the beach, trying to get focused on something constructive, alive. Colleen, now there was something alive.
She seemed so far away now . . . hell—he hardly knew the girl. Why did she walk through his imagination like she owned it? He had hardly talked to her, except, dammit, that girl spoke volumes through her eyes. The twinkle, the softness . . . like his mother in
a way. Her brogue. It puzzled Jack why his memories of the girl weren't dimming with time. They were growing stronger.
He passed one of the long-deserted native hearths and said out loud to no one, “Hundreds of years, thousands, millions? I'll bet you folks never read
Theory of the Earth.
... Why don't you show yourselves?”
F
IRST CONTACT WITH the natives was not much longer in coming. In the early light of the next day, a man materialized out of the morning mist, right in front of Jack. He appeared from the brush bordering the rough windward side of the islet, the exact opposite direction the sailors had expected. Jack had finished relieving himself on the fringe of the camp when he realized that the man-shaped bush he was studying through bleary eyes was, in fact, a man.
The native watched Jack with no discernible expression. The spear in his right hand was held butt to the ground and what appeared to be some form of battleaxe rested easily on his left shoulder. The native seemed to harbor no threat but rather maintained a cautious, noncommittal demeanor. Jack took a step back. He instantly felt certain the man was not alone; his suspicions were confirmed as other forms began to appear out of the rapidly dissipating morning fog. Jack couldn't help thinking they were the strangest looking people he had ever set eyes upon.
He wondered how he and his shipwrecked comrades must appear to them.

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