“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?”
11
THEY MEET THE NATIVES
FIRST 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.
The natives were dark copper in color and appeared to be wearing even darker clothes. But seeing their exposed genitals, Jack realized they were actually completely naked and used some sort of body paint.