Wake of the Perdido Star (25 page)
Read Wake of the Perdido Star Online
Authors: Gene Hackman
“Now, now, it's doubt that shapes the man. Descartes never said âI think therefore I am.' He said âI doubt, therefore I think, thereforeâ”
“Oh damn it all.” Jack was in no mood for philosophy. He could taste those gun parts.
The majority of the
Star
's survivors and many of the villagers, including the best divers, were back at the islet, pushing the limit of their abilities to see what could be retrieved from the sunken ship.
Star
's survivors and many of the villagers, including the best divers, were back at the islet, pushing the limit of their abilities to see what could be retrieved from the sunken ship.
Many useful items had been brought to the surface, including a few hundred feet of hemp rope, a dozen blocks, several deadeyes, and odd pieces of chain rigging. Some of the oaken timbers themselves were removed with the use of ropes. They had even retrieved an axe, some adzes, and a mystery box. The latter was opened anxiously on shore to reveal a setting for twelve of prime Chinese porcelain.
“Christ, you idiots, look at markings before you risk a man's life to salvage the makin's for a bleedin' tea party,” Quince said.
His lack of appreciation for the table setting notwithstanding, Paul and Quen-Li carefully removed the crate from the other piles of trove and took it to the cook tent.
Shram and Maril, two of the better native divers, had been able
to tie the end of a hemp line to a link of chain rigging stowed in the forward hold. Steady working of the line from the surface had managed to dislodge and raise almost a hundred feet of iron links. The line was presently hung up again, but Shram returned to the hold to free it from whatever obstacle had snagged it.
to tie the end of a hemp line to a link of chain rigging stowed in the forward hold. Steady working of the line from the surface had managed to dislodge and raise almost a hundred feet of iron links. The line was presently hung up again, but Shram returned to the hold to free it from whatever obstacle had snagged it.
Still, with these considerable accomplishments, the sailors were frustrated that only one kit bag had been found and that it contained only a single pair of barely serviceable boots. The crew's quarters, with its precious footwear and gun mechanisms, were in about ten fathoms of water and seemed out of reach. The native divers could spear fish at sixty feet for short periods, but expecting them to work at that depth searching through a tangle of unfamiliar gear to find boots and intricate brass firing assemblies was out of the question. Due to the way the wreck lay, the aft hold with the gun barrels was the most accessible. “Full fathom five thy father's gun barrels lie,” Paul declared. “We needs retrieve them before they suffer a sea-change into something rich and strange.”
As the natives were excellent breath-hold divers, they might eventually find the barrels, a job much easier than retrieval at the crew's quarters.
Jack retired to his housing, watching Quen-Li for some time. The cook was expertly working a blade through a filet of fish and had a pot boiling for his latest concoction of island gruel.
“Good day, brother Li. How go the cooking wars?”
“Quite well, Jackie. Quen-Li have some good fixin's by eveningâdon't need no wahine wogs cook for us.”
Jack smiled. Although Quen-Li deferred to native women for preparing meals at the village, he was loath to give in to the island custom when on “Star Islet” where the ship had wrecked. He was the ship's cook and culinary master of the islet, which was just an extension of the ship in his mind. Quen-Li kept to himself most of the time but responded to Jack's friendliness and Paul's irrepressible humor with more openness than he did to any of the others,
who saw him simply as a Chinese cook. Jack and Paul treated him as a man who cooked and was Chinese.
who saw him simply as a Chinese cook. Jack and Paul treated him as a man who cooked and was Chinese.
“Do you long for home sometimes?” Jack asked, as the knife chunked through breadfruit at mesmerizing speed.
“No, Jackie. I
am
home. And you?”
am
home. And you?”
The question took Jack by surprise; it was simple enough, but he realized he didn't know the answer.
“Yes, of course I do . . . well, in a way . . .” Jack considered that he wasn't really sure where home was. There, with the knife still making a rhythmic chuk-chuk in the background, he thought of the Chinaman's own assessment. “I am home.” It seemed to Jack this Chinese cook wasted no energy in his movement or his words; his mind was as sharp as that blade he wielded with such precision.
Jack spent as much time as he could away from the village, partly for a reason he had trouble acknowledging. Women were readily available on Belaurâunbelievably so. For some reason, however, his flesh did combat with his soul in their presence. His urges were powerful and dominated his dreams, but since the dark happenings in Cuba, he couldn't even attempt to start sex with a woman. Wyalum, in particularâMaril's sisterâhad taken a liking to him, and the push-pull in his soul when she was around tormented him. He desperately wanted to sink into her soft brown flesh. The thought of Wyalum's tiring of his strange debility and joining other sailors disturbed him deeply, but he could not release himself to nature's insistent call. He could not even talk of it with Paul. Jack knew his tent-mate was aware of his problem, but it was not something he felt ready to discuss.
One night he fantasized Colleen holding him to her in his half sleep, and she had magically transformed into Wyalum sitting astride him, moving rhythmically over his groin.
Jack pondered again the problem of the salvage. Quince had seen to it that the capstan was to be recovered, so he could exert mechanical leverage; that was probably a good idea, but it would be of little help in getting to the most important materials.
Quen-Li had arranged a number of the recovered porcelain cups on the table, Jack noted. That would be a spiritual lift for the men, returning for supper to find the formality of an English teahouse. His eye caught the teapot and the metal chain that suspended an iron sievelike capsule for the tea from its lid. There was something about that gadget . . .
He walked over to the makeshift cupboard, picked up a drinking glass, pulled a dry piece of cloth from a box, stuffed it in the bottom of the glass, then inverted the glass and stuck it in a bucket of water, sure he had seen this done as a child. He withdrew the still-inverted glass and checked the cloth. It was dry. An idea began to form in his mind. He left the hut.
Jack's train of thought was interrupted by the arrival with great fanfare of a war canoe. Apparently, a fleet of canoes from Papalo, thirty miles to the north, had been spotted on the other side of the village. They had raided before in Belauran waters. All the natives working at the islet prepared to return to the main island. After a quick parley among the whites, Quince ordered the pistol loaded and primed and brought back with them, but kept well hidden.
He had decided to make good on their promise to Yatoo. Jack heartily approved, sticking a knife in his belt and hoping there would be some more appropriate weapon available at the village, such as a spear or an axe. He felt queasiness but part of him was gladdened at the prospect of defending the people who had taken them in as family.
The plan was for their small group to hurry through the shallows and reinforce the village. From the gestures and quick translation by Brown, Jack gathered that another canoe had by now alerted the village where Gan Jawa and most of his warriors were located. Three canoes were quickly emptied of fishing gear and
other nonessentials, so, counting the one sent to alert them, the group could muster four good craft.
other nonessentials, so, counting the one sent to alert them, the group could muster four good craft.
The canoes surged fluidly through the water. The Americans, distributed evenly among the four, had shipped their paddles, unable to add to the effortless coordination of the natives, whose faces shone with excitement and apprehension.
Blood boiling in anticipation, Jack glanced at Paul in a nearby canoe: he was pale with fear but would not be left behind. With the tide high, they chose passages through swampy areas, impassable at low water. At times they seemed to fairly skim over the tops of reeds and coral that lay inches from their hull bottoms.
The smooth, quiet movement of the boats resulted in an unexpected encounter with a dozen Papaloan war canoes that had taken cover in a cove. The warriors had spread along a shell bank, a scant quarter mile from the village; some of them had already climbed the mound, peering in the direction of the village compound to see if they had been detected.
The appearance of the small Belauran force was a total surprise. Both groups froze. It didn't take long for the Papaloan warlord to make a decision; the Belaurans had not been fishing; they were armed, ready to attack. Someone must have alerted them. He had obviously lost the advantage of surprise and now had to choose between a fight with an inferior force of four canoes or with a large village that he could only assume had been alerted to their presence.
The large man whom Jack took to be the Papaloan leader uttered a savage scream, waving his club to motion his men to attack.
After a short hesitation, the outnumbered Belaurans and whites back-paddled to the beach, where they could disembark to make a standâor flee, if the situation deteriorated. The first to reach the beach yelled back defiantly at the attacking Papaloans and readied
their own slings, as darts and spears whizzed in their direction from the enemy.
their own slings, as darts and spears whizzed in their direction from the enemy.
Jack wondered where Yatoo's main force was. They obviously had time to organize a defense, or the canoe would have never been spared to retrieve the men at the wreck. Jack hoped Jawa hadn't missed the developing confrontation by passing on the open-water side of the island chain, thinking the enemy would choose to keep open water at their backs. Gan Jawa would surely be leading the force and he wasn't the kind of man to make that sort of mistake. At least Jack dearly hoped so.
A rock passed within inches of his temple and a hail of missiles started raining around him, thrown by the men in the middle of the attacking canoes, while the fore and aft men paddled. Jack could feel the uncertainty about him; the men sent to retrieve the Americans had no leaders among them, being simply reinforcements for Jawa's men. Two of them had already been hit and the others, including the Americans, were in a near panicâit had all happened so damned fast. Quince, in the absence of any display of authority by their Indian allies, yelled for his men to draw their swords and close ranksâthis last especially important, since not all the men even had proper weapons, Jack thought.
Although his heart pounded at an impossible rate, Jack found his head clear and his concentration total. The mundane uncertainties of life had disappeared. There were enemies in front; some, he noted, were breaking off to another point of access to the beach. He thought he heard Quince yelling to him, but his mind now fixed on the face of the man in the lead of the first attacking canoe. A fierce-looking Indian, he was almost on top of two of the Belaurans who had fallen trying to make land. One of the stricken men Jack recognized as Maril; the other was a heavyset man with a contagious laugh who had helped pull objects from the ship.
Now the heavy man bellowed in pain as a spear passed through his right thigh. Though Maril would not desert his comrade, he could do nothing but watch as the first Papaloan dropped his paddle,
grabbed his club, and with a brutal swipe, smashed in the side of the wounded Belauran's head. The attacker then looked straight at Jack, grinning fiendishly, obviously trying to decide whether to turn toward Maril or the odd-looking young white man who had not joined his comrades on shore. That toothy grin, that murderous look . . . somehow Jack knew that look. Something in him snapped.
grabbed his club, and with a brutal swipe, smashed in the side of the wounded Belauran's head. The attacker then looked straight at Jack, grinning fiendishly, obviously trying to decide whether to turn toward Maril or the odd-looking young white man who had not joined his comrades on shore. That toothy grin, that murderous look . . . somehow Jack knew that look. Something in him snapped.
In a move that took even him by surprise, Jack sloshed quickly through calf-deep water, straight toward the enemy, and dove into the canoe Quince and his men had just abandoned. As he expected, the pistol was still in the basket that had been deserted when his comrades had tumbled pell-mell onto the beach.
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