Mac had hung his pistol by its strap on the back of the captain’s chair and was leaning heavily against it, his screwed-up features the colour of mud, his eyes staring out through the open starboard door of the wheelhouse. No breath of air now, the ship drifting slowly sideways with the current and a view back down the Buka Passage framed in the doorway, the scene darkening as heavy cu-nim clouds obscured the sun. ‘Always was a tricky place.’ He was muttering to himself, wiping the sweat from his face, the hand holding the dirty handkerchief shaking uncontrollably.
I moved out to the port bridge wing. Released prisoners crowded the deck below, clung to the ladder leading up to where I stood. Our bows had already drifted past No. 7 marker post, the current carrying us out towards another pole beacon with a flat top marking the last of the Minon Island shallows, and beyond that beacon, in line with our stern, the island of Madehas was coming into view with a small hill covered with palms and a house just visible on North Madehas Point.
I went back into the wheelhouse and got the glasses. It was a wooden building with a veranda, rather taller than the old DC’s house on Sohano and with storage sheds. There was a track leading down to a reef-enclosed creek. Something that looked like a light was stuck up on a pole. ‘Is there a jetty there?’ I asked Mac.
I got no reply. He was staring past me, straight towards the house, his eyes quite vacant, seeing only something that was in his mind. The body of the dead crewman was being carried out, but he didn’t notice. The Inspector was talking to Luke, the ship drifting, everything in a hush of suspended animation, nobody — least of all myself — knowing what to do next. Luke kept glancing at Mac, hesitating. Finally he turned to me. ‘Inspector Mbalu say we must get under way. We cannot stay here.’
‘Of course not.’ If we didn’t get moving soon, even a shallow draft vessel like this would be aground. ‘But where does he want us to go — continue on or turn back into the Passage?’
There was a long pause, and then the Inspector said, ‘On. We go on.’ It was obvious he hadn’t thought what he was going to do next and needed time to consider. Rain began to fall, large drops as big as coins. Thunder rumbled in the distance. Mac turned his head, jerked suddenly out of his trance. ‘Holland House Cove,’ he said quietly. ‘There’s five fathoms close off the jetty. You can anchor there.’ He peered out through the bridge wing door. ‘Aye, and you’d better do it quick, or you won’t be seeing a bloody thing.’ And he climbed into the captain’s chair and just sat there, staring moodily ahead.
I rang for engines and with a little backing and filling got the ship’s head round. We were already past the flat-topped marker post, another fine on our port bow and not much more than half a mile to go. The Buka Passage vanished behind us, engulfed in a thundering, inky blackness. The raindrops bounced on the flat brown surface of the water, leaping to meet the next drop falling; lightning ripped the indigo heavens, a crack of thunder and a distant hissing growing closer.
We were just off the eastern reef of the cove when the storm hit, everything suddenly wiped out in the torrent of water pouring down. Luke was aft seeing to the stern anchor, the Buka crew working under police guard, and I was left to con her in, nothing visible — only the echo-sounder recording 7 fathoms and the vague impression of the reef-edge yards away to port. I could see nothing, absolutely nothing. I took her in on the echo-sounder, dropped the stern anchor by guesswork and then ordered Luke to the bows to supervise the letting go of the main anchor.
About ten minutes later the wind hit us. It came from the north at first, tugging at our stern anchor. The rain, lessening now, drove horizontally past the ship, and there was nothing else to see — just the wind-driven rain and the water round us lashed to such a frenzy that at moments the surface of it took off and became airborne. It was like that for perhaps a quarter of an hour. It seemed much longer, the wind backing and the noise so violent it was impossible to speak, even to think. Gradually the wind shifted to south so that we were under the lee of Madehas, gusts alternating with lulls, and then for a moment there was no wind at all, the rain much heavier now and falling vertically in a steady, persistent downpour. That’s how I arrived at the Hollands’ house on Madehas, looking up at it through a curtain of tropical rain with the sun’s faint glimmer coming and going.
Part Four
Chapter Eight
It was Mac who took me up to the house, hiding himself under a large black umbrella so that he looked like a two-legged beetle walking its carapace up the hill. It was just after midday. The rain had eased to little more than a drizzle, and the sun, striking vertically down on us through what was now only a very thin cloud layer, gave off such a glaring, humid heat that every movement had become an effort. I wouldn’t have gone up there if it hadn’t been for something he told me, something that switched my mind back to that half-breed Lewis up at Cooktown and his story of the Dog Weary mine.
It must have been about an hour after we had anchored. The wind had dropped considerably, and I had just completed a tour of the ship with Luke and the police inspector. When we got back to the wheel-house, we were still discussing whether to put in to Chinaman’s Quay and land everybody there, or wait in an attempt to make a night landing close to the airfield. Mac was alone, still sitting in the captain’s chair, his body hunched and looking shrunken so that I had the impression he had suddenly aged. The large-scale chart with the plan of the Buka Passage gave no indication of depth along the shore in the vicinity of the airfield. Luke couldn’t help; he had never been in there. I turned to Mac and asked him if he could pilot us in.
He didn’t seem to hear me. I repeated the question, and he turned slowly, staring at me blankly. ‘The airfield?’ He shook his head. ‘That wasn’t why we killed the Japs. He’d never go for that. It was too well guarded.’ He was still back in the past. ‘No, that was our target … ’ and he pointed straight ahead, beyond the bows and the straining anchor chain, to the house which was just emerging from the rain, a grey, dripping shadow among thrashing palms. ‘A boatload of Japs killed, half a dozen Buka men, and two of our own injured. All because he wanted to have it out with that cousin of his.’ He turned to face me again, fastening me with those pale, watery eyes, so bright and birdlike I was reminded of the Ancient Mariner. ‘Something had got into him,’ he breathed, seeing nothing but what was in his mind. ‘Something … I don’t know what. Been there a long time, I reck’n. And that night … ’ His head swung round to stare at the house again. ‘I’ll never forget how he looked that night. We were in that little office he’d had built, the two books laid out on the floor beside the open safe and himself crouched there and staring down at a letter in his hand. Dear Red, it began; it was a letter to Red Holland, you see.’ A long pause, and then: ‘Pity the bastard wasn’t there … that was the house we should have burned over his head …’ And he added, ‘It wasn’t as big then. Not much bigger than the native hut young Carlos built on the self-same site when he ruled the Buka Passage.’ Another longer pause, and then he said, so quietly I only just heard him, ‘It was accursed then. Reck’n it’s been cursed ever since. Still is,’ he muttered to himself, relapsing suddenly into silence.