My eyelids gradually became heavy, almost gummed together with sleep, and to keep myself awake, I began thinking about Bougainville, what future the island might hold for me. Then my mind switched involuntarily to the trucks we were going to load off that beach and to Perenna Holland — wondering whether she had got my message in time, what she would do. Would she stay with her aunt in Perth or fly on to Sydney, hire a car and drive up to Tin Can Bay? I knew so little about her, I didn’t even know whether she had a licence and could drive. And if she did manage to locate us in the dark, what prospect was there for the development of any close relationship here on board, with her brother and his problems always present? Even my memory of her was now overshadowed by that vivid drunken picture he had given me of her wielding a cleaver in the blood-bespattered kitchen where their mother had been murdered. An outbreak of native hysteria, the lawyer had called it. But hysteria is a symptom; there had to be a cause for such an outbreak of violence.
Luke relieved me as dawn broke reluctantly under the overcast, the ship tramping steadily on over a leaden sea and the coast of New South Wales just visible, a dark line on the horizon to port. He had a reasonable command of English, and I stayed with him for a while. He was from a village at the eastern end of New Britain. He showed me the position of it on the Pacific Ocean chart. It was on the coast facing towards Hixon Bay and a high mountain called The Father. He was an important figure in his village, he said, but to retain his position he had to return at reasonable intervals to hold a feast and give presents. ‘I have two worlds, you see.’ He was smiling a little sadly. ‘They do not understand this world. They know I am a navigator and have a ship. That they can understand, for we have always lived partly by the sea. But they can only see that I am a navigator if I go there and prove to them I am rich. It is a very poor village.’ And he added quickly, ‘But the life there is good.’
I asked him why he wouldn’t stand a night watch or navigate out of sight of land. He hesitated a long time before replying. Finally he said, ‘Mr Sling’by, believe me, I can do it.’ His deep voice was suddenly urgent. ‘But I do not have confidence when the Captain is all time watching me. In the islands he know I am a good navigator, but at night, or on a long voyage like from Louisiade Archipelago to Sandy Cape, he has no trust, so I am afraid I don’t do it right and make some very abominable mistake.’ He looked at me then, his black, broad-nosed face reflecting a deep-felt sense of wrong. ‘It is a long time since you serve in a ship like this, but he does not watch over you.’ He said it almost accusingly.
Looking into his face, I realised that beneath that black, markedly different shell was a very proud man. ‘Would it help,’ I said cautiously, ‘if you shared a night watch with me? Later in the trip.’ And I added, ‘It would certainly help me if you did. I don’t know these waters, and I’d appreciate having you check my navigation.’
He hesitated, his large brown eyes fixed on me intently. Finally he nodded. ‘Yes, I do that.’ And suddenly he was smiling at me, a great broad smile that had extraordinary warmth in it. ‘I think you understand.’
I left him then to find the wardroom empty, breakfast already over and the table littered with the remains of the meal. I was tired and didn’t feel like food anyway. I slipped down the companionway to the main deck, got a mug of tea from the galley and took it to my cabin, turning in straight away. Holland was having a long lie-in in preparation for the night ahead, and I was due on the bridge again at noon.
Luke called me a little before twelve so that I had time to eat before going on watch. There was nobody else in the wardroom, and Samson, the big, burly steward, served me in lonely splendour. When I finally joined Luke in the wheelhouse, I found the weather had deteriorated. There was no sign of the coast now, visibility down to about 2 miles. ‘This evening I think it rain,’ he said.
‘You’ve got a new forecast, have you?’
He shook his head, laughing. ‘Don’t need forecast to tell me what this weather will be. I know.’
I was to discover that in this, and in many other things, his instinct was infallible. But he knew nothing about sorcery, or pretended not to, though he admitted it existed and that it was still practised in the islands. Talking to him, I found him a complicated mixture of pride and diffidence. He was also one of the most likeable men I had ever met.
He relieved me again at four, and by then there were rain clouds building up to the east of us. ‘Compass course is due north,’ I said, ‘and the radar shows the coast six-and-a-half miles off. Have you had some tea?’
‘No, I have coffee.’
I got some tea from the galley and took it up to the wardroom. There was nobody there, and when I had finished it, I started on a tour of the ship. It was the first opportunity I had had to look around. I started with the engine-room. They were still clearing up after the overhaul, but already the copper and brasswork gleamed and the whole hot mass of machinery had a cared-for look. The chief engineer was from Rabaul, an old grey-haired man who introduced himself as Ahab Holtz. Of mixed German blood, and German-trained, he was a cheerful, friendly man, and his regard for his engines was in the nature of a love affair. The others in the engine-room were different. They were from Buka, and I was unpleasantly conscious of the sullenness of their manner.
Outside of the engine-room the ship was in a poor state, dirt and rust everywhere and no sign of anything having been painted for a long time. Even essential gear looked neglected, and nothing seemed to have been done to clean up on deck after the period in dock. The galley on the main deck of the bridge housing was far from clean, and in the crew’s mess for’ard I sensed that same sullenness. They were most of them from Buka, and the coxs’n was there with them, a squat bearded man, the skin of his face so glossy black it looked like polished ebony. He said his name was Teopas, and when I asked him why he didn’t stick to his own mess aft, he affected not to understand, though I learned later he had been to school at a Marist Mission and spoke quite good English. I told him to come with me and check some of the things that urgently needed attention, but he just stood there staring at me with surly insolence, not saying a word, and the devil of it was there was no way I could enforce the order.
I went aft then to what had been the sergeants’ mess, which was where he should have been. The only occupant was the bos’n and when I asked him about the attitude of the Buka men, he said, ‘Buka bilong Solomons. No laikim Papua Niugini gavman. Buka pipal laik ind’pendence. Bougainville tu.’ He was from Kieta, and he said something about his father’s having been killed by the Australians during the war. At least, I think it was that. He said, ‘Papa bilong mi and ol Australia maikim dai.’
Finally I went up to my cabin feeling distinctly uneasy. A ship with a political bombshell ticking away in its guts, that wasn’t what I had been looking for when I had come out to her in Darling Harbour. As I lay on my bunk, thinking about it, it was hard to realise it was only thirty-six hours since I had come on board.
I was back on the bridge at 20.00 after a greasy, overdone steak, apple pie and coffee. Holland was there, pacing restlessly back and forth. Nobody else except the helmsman. ‘We’re closing the coast now,’ he said. ‘I altered course about an hour and a half back, shortly after we came on to the continental shelf. I’m not sure, but I think I’ve got the loom of Double Island light fine on the port bow. We’re in sixty-five fathoms at the moment. When you get below thirty fathoms, put the engines at Slow Ahead and give me a call.’
‘What’s your ETA at the beach?’ I asked him.
‘Between midnight and o-four-hundred was what I told them. I guess we should be there about o-one-hundred, probably a little before.’ He went over to the chart. ‘That’s our position.’ He had pencilled in a cross with 20.00 against it. ‘When you raise the light keep it fine on the port bow, and whatever the depth call me at twenty-three-thirty. We should be less than an hour’s run from the beach then.’ He turned to me with a quick, nervous smile. ‘I hope you’re enjoying yourself. It’s a great help to have you on board, and I’m grateful.’