Casca 17: The Warrior Page 4

  As the two men came aboard Casca saw that, in fact, the man was not black, but a deep, coppery brown like the stock of an old musket.

  "Meet the new bosun," Larsen said as he came aboard. "Foster," he continued to an able seaman, "show the bosun around will you?" He hurried away to attend to his many concerns.

  Foster came from Charleston, South Carolina, and before the Civil War his parents had owned a few slaves. He was not impressed with the idea of working under a black bosun.

  "What about Liam?" he asked after Larsen.

  "He's new second mate," Larsen threw over his shoulder as he descended the companionway, "and Ulf's mate.''

  The seamen on deck let out a cheer. Liam did a little comic jig, and Ulf smiled. Born at sea, he had started work on his father's boat at four, and it had taken forty-three more years to make it to the rank of first mate.

  "So what are ye all waiting for?" he snapped at his crew, "we'll never clear port if you lazy bums don't shift your asses."

  They moved quickly to ready the ship for sea.

  "He's a glum son of a bitch," the irrepressible Sandy chuckled when they were safely forward, "but he's probably the best damn seaman on the planet."

  There was a small chorus of ayes from the other sailors.

  In the stern Ulf turned to the Fijian, who was grinning hugely and smiled even wider when Ulf pointed to the companionway.

  "You'll find another heathen in the galley," Ulf said. "He'll break out some blankets for ye."

  "Yes, sir," the Fijian grinned, "but Kini not heathen. I'm Christian."

  "The hell you are," Ulf snorted. "Christians are white." He turned away to his duties, and Kini went below to the galley.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The fine weather and light winds carried them into the Koro Sea, a small, island-fringed sea about the size of what European sailors call the Great North Sea, set within the planet-reaching proportions of the mighty Pacific. It was here they had run into the violent storm that nearly finished them off.

  The storm had lasted for several days and nights, and now it seemed they were coming out of it. The seas were growing calmer by the hour, the wind now a steady, heavy blow, a good, roaring, following wind to sail with.

  The damaged Rangaroa was way off course, somewhere south southwest of the fabled Fiji islands, discovered and named the Cannibal Isles by Captain Bligh on his way back to England after the Bounty mutineers had set him adrift in an open boat without charts or compass.

  The British had ignored the Cannibal Isles until 1860, when they were annexed by the governor of New South Wales, Sir Hercules Robinson. Fiji then became nominally a British colony. But in fact it was the possession of the Australian descendants of the gang of military criminals who had stolen that huge island out of the real sovereignty of the British Empire by yet another mutiny against the same Bligh, when he was governor of the Australian penal colony.

  With the end of slavery in the United States in the wake of the Civil War, the small clique that owned most of Australia saw the opportunity to further enrich themselves. By using slaves from the south Pacific islands, they grew sugar and cotton more cheaply than could be matched elsewhere in the world.

  A gang of missionary traders armed Cakabau, the chief of the tiny ninety-acre island of Bau, and declared him king of Fiji. Cakabau then gratefully ceded the whole of Fiji to Britain, and Sir Hercules Robinson and the Whitehall government obligingly ratified the deal, legitimatizing the reign of the bloodthirsty cannibal chief. By 1867 his regime had become infamous for the killing and eating of his subjects and the enslavement of those whom he was too sated to eat.

  The Rangaroa was carrying cargo for Levuka, the cannibal monarch's capital, and Larsen knew that it was safe to put into port there. There was no telling just what sort of reception they might get on any of the other Cannibal Isles.

  But just now there was no telling where any such island might be.

  Studying the navigation chart, Larsen looked irritable, and at the same time amused. "Look at this, will you?" he said, pounding the chart with a finger as thick as a small belaying pin. "It says here: 'Some reports of a small group of islands in this vicinity.' For Christ's sake, what sort of sailing direction do ye call that?"

  "Things is different in these parts," said Liam, who was studying the chart with him. "It was around these parts that Gulliver discovered Brobdignag, and not too far away he found Lilliput."

  He spoke matter-of-factly, as if he would not be at all surprised to glance out the porthole and see a man standing in the sea and towering over the schooner, or another only a few inches tall, dancing on the head of a belaying pin.

  "Bah, fairy tales," snorted Ulf. "ships have gone looking for dose islands and found nutting. Just fairy tales."

  "Fiction anyway," said Larsen. "I've read Swift's book."

  "Have ye now?" Liam chuckled. "Then read this." He laid on the chart table an open copy of the Pacific Islands Pilot of 1864. "These reports is not from a dotty old Irish priest like Swift, but from hard-nosed English insurance men."

  Larsen picked up the book and read: "Lloyd's agent reported hereabouts the island of Tanakuvi, longitude 172 49 West and latitude 19 36 South. But HMS Vengeance, searching for the island, reported depth of fifty-seven fathoms."

  Larsen slammed the book shut. "It's enough to make you believe in the devil himself."

  "Then you're learning something at last," chuckled Liam, ducking as Larsen playfully swung a great fist near his nose.

  "There's been islands appearing and disappearing in these parts ever since Magellan found the Tuamotus four hundred years ago." Ulf chuckled drily.

  "The question is," Larsen said, "what is here now? This chart is no bloody help at all. There's a ship lost every week running into uncharted islands hereabout, and I don't intend for Rangaroa to be another one."

  Liam opened the well-thumbed copy of the Pacific Islands Pilot and read: "In this vicinity the Clara Bella reported rocks in 1836, and the Coyne reported a group of small islands in 1842. However, in 1849 the Carl Gustaf found a depth of fifty-six fathoms."

  "So?" the captain queried.

  Liam closed the book and slammed it on the chart table in disgust. "That's all. Not another word."

  "Jesus'" Larson shouted.

  "Land ho," came a hail from the deck, and everybody scrambled for the companionway.

  This time there was no doubt. The island was very clear on the horizon. Larsen looked at Sandy, who was on watch.

  "How long has that been there?"

  The Scot grimaced and shook his head. "Just now, skipper. Just now. Even clear air hides things here, dammit."

  Larsen looked up at the bright, cloudless sky, then back at the island and shook his head. "Well, thank God, we saw it anyway. Let's get these sails down. There's sure to be a reef somewhere between us and the island." He shouted to the man out on the bowsprit. "How's the water?"

  "Deep and clear," the seaman shouted back.

  Under reduced sail the Rangaroa slowly approached the island. Larsen paced the deck restlessly. The whole crew was on the lookout—on the bowsprit, in the crow's nest, all over the rigging.

  The man on the bowsprit called, "Changing water."

  "Ready anchor," Larsen shouted, and the crew sprang to ready the forward anchor as Larsen himself went out onto the bowsprit.

  Casca was as far forward as he could get without getting in the way of the crew, and he could see that the water had changed from deep blue to a dark green. As he watched it changed again, to a lighter green.

  "Ready about, anchor over," Larsen shouted from the bowsprit, and came running back to the helm. The crew hefted the heavy anchor over the side and it hung there ready to drop.

  Now Casca could see faint ripples ahead of the ship where an underwater reef disturbed the movement of the sea.

  "Lee ho," Larsen shouted, and Sandy put the helm over. The sailors on the port side let go the ropes they were holding, and those on the starboard side ha
uled on theirs while others ran across the deck helping the light breeze move the sails to the other tack.

  The Rangaroa came slowly around and the island was astern.

  "Sail ho," one of the seamen shouted as he saw a boat put out from the distant island.

  Soon they could see canoes coming from several points: sail canoes—two and three hulls lashed together with great, broad decks between and enormous triangular sails; single outrigger sail canoes—the outrigger a deftly shaped log, the canoe itself dug out of a log; and huge dugout canoes with twenty men at the paddles. The dugouts came racing through the water, passing the sail craft, the crews singing lustily in time with their strokes.

  And rafts. Rafts of bamboo poles lashed together with vines, a single, small sail on a short mast. These came out over the reef to the Rangaroa and surrounded her, their smiling crews shouting welcomes.

  "Haere mai, haere mai, Valangi. Bula, bula. Welcome, Valangi, welcome. Bienvenidos," and some other words in Chinese and Japanese, or perhaps Malay. They shouted welcome in all the languages they knew.

  "Valangi," Sandy explained, "means men from the sky." He jerked his head upward toward several seamen sitting in the crosstrees. "Looks to them like we climb down the masts out of the sky."

  The islanders pointed to where the other craft were coming through the unseen opening in the reef.

  Larsen glanced at Ulf. "The reef might be tricky, but we'll be a damn sight safer, inside than out here. We can't sail farther till we repair the rudder anyway."

  All right with me, thought Casca, who had already decided that he would feel more comfortable with the reef between him and the Pacific, rather than riding between the Pacific and the reef. "Yeah," he said, "I'll be happy to be inside the reef."

  "Unless they decide to eat us," the dour Greenlander muttered flatly, giving Casca something to think about.

  These people were very different from those they had left in Tahiti. They were darker, almost black, like Kini, but they wore their hair in great crinkly mops, as he did.

  The first of the canoes had now reached the Rangaroa, and Larsen signaled to them that he would follow them back through the opening.

  In a moment the crew had again shaken out Rangaroa's sails, and she was under way, guided by the flotilla of rafts that took up position between the ship and the reef, shepherding her to the opening, where canoes were coming out. Just beyond the rafts Casca could see the outline of coral rocks beneath the surface.

  As the ship came to the opening in the reef the wind suddenly died.

  "On the fucking doorstep, like always," Larsen shouted as he put the helm up, the ship responding slowly to the torn and splintered rudder.

  "Like fuckin' always," Sandy yelled as he raced forward to hand the foresail across the foredeck.

  All over the deck crewmen were handling rope and hauling sail as they sought to change tack in the suddenly slackened breeze, moving the sails to use what wind there might be to keep the ship clear of the coral.

  The foresail filled in the light wind, the other sails bellied slightly, and the Rangaroa veered away from the hacksaw teeth of the reef.

  Lines of intertwined vines were passed aboard and bent together with ropes on the Rangaroa's deck, and first one then several of the twenty-man canoes took up the tow, hauling the ship through the reef opening and into the safe waters of the lagoon.

  As they glided through the reef Casca could see the jagged coral only yards away from the side of the Rangaroa. Then they were inside.

  In deep, calm water Larsen let go of the helm and Sandy dropped the slack end of the foresail sheet. Seamen were furling sail, and all over the deck the crew were belaying rope. The anchor chain ran out into the bottomless well of the old volcanic crater that formed the harbor.

  Casca could see the hook dangling fathoms below, but nowhere near the bottom.

  It was just sunset, and now a faint offshore breeze came to them, carrying with it the scent of frangipani blossoms. Casca felt very much at ease.

  He looked at the others. They were smiling. He took a deep breath of the perfume-laden air. And he smiled.

  Larsen addressed his crew on the deck. "There's no way to guess what we might be heading into here. Kini tells me he doesn't know these people, but they seem as friendly as Fijians—might be as bloodthirsty too. So keep your knives handy but out of sight. Steel is unknown in these parts, and I'll maroon any man who gives a girl his knife to play with."

  "Not what I had in mind at all." Casca laughed as he patted his knife, concealed in its sheath in his inner jacket pocket. He wondered if Larsen had a revolver somewhere about him as he felt the weight of his own .38 and its shells in his jacket pockets.

  He took a deep breath of the flower-scented air. And he smiled—a big, toothy smile.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Canoes ferried them to the beach, where they were greeted by music and bare-breasted girls in grass skirts whose dancing was quite different from the Tahitians. The music came from wooden drums and an instrument made from a coconut half strung with strings of gut. Casca reflected that there were no animals in these islands, and forebore thinking further about just what gut might have been used.

  They were taken to a fortified village on a hilltop some distance from the beach.

  Casca was impressed by the village defenses. A six-foot palisade of sharpened poles leaned outward so that it was virtually unscalable by attackers. On the inside there were two horizontal rails that enabled the defenders to take up positions of advantage. There were small openings that a man had to bend double to get through. There were three of these fences to be passed through before they reached the village, a collection of thatched huts around an open space. The huts were similar to those on Hua Wahine, but these had walls of woven coconut fronds and floors of crushed seashells.

  The hut they were led to was many times the size of any of the others. At the far end of the one enormous room a huge man sat cross-legged on a raised dais of coconut logs covered with seashells and grass mats. He was, perhaps, the biggest man Casca had ever seen.

  He recalled that legend amongst European sailors had it that these cannibals continued to grow throughout their lives, and looking at Semele, Casca could believe it.

  The man was enormous, but not in any one place. His body was one firm, muscular ball. Nowhere were there any folds of loose fat or sagging flesh. His huge head sat on a columnar neck atop a body that was as thick through from breastbone to spine as it was from shoulder to shoulder. Arms the size of Casca's legs were complemented by great legs and huge feet.

  Yet when Semele moved, Casca was amazed to see that he moved easily and even gracefully.

  The house filled up with people and Casca guessed that everybody in the village was there. Semele came down from the dais which Casca assumed was his private space. Not very private, he thought, and not much space either.

  Everybody sat cross-legged on the floor and two women carried in a carved bowl filled with a muddy liquid. They placed it on the floor and another old man, not quite as huge as Semele, carried from it a huge whale's tooth on a rope of plaited vines, placing it at Semele's feet.

  "Kava," sandy told Casca. "They like it better than whiskey."

  A glance was enough to convince Casca that he was much more likely to prefer whiskey.

  The old man, Mbolo, intoned a long speech which was presumably a welcome. A younger man scooped some of the kava in a bowl made from a polished half coconut shell and with much ceremony carried it respectfully to the chief. Semele clapped his hands, then accepted the bowl and drained it, clapped three more times, said "matha" returned the bowl to the young man, and everybody in the room clapped three times.

  The whale's tooth, called a tabua, was moved to Larsen's feet, and the next bowl came to Larsen, who repeated the chief's actions. The bowl passed back and forth, going now to Mbolo and then to Casca, although the tabua remained by Larsen.

  Casca chuckled to himself as he realized that the islanders
placed him number two in the ship's company. Guess they've never heard of a passenger, he mused. He was disagreeably surprised to find that the liquid tasted every bit as bad as it looked, the only effect being a numb feeling in his tongue and gums. The bowl passed back and forth, going now to one of the islanders, then to one of the company from the Rangaroa.

  When all the company had drunk from the bowl it continued to pass, but conversation broke out throughout the room. The language was musical, stately, and interspersed with much laughter.

  The chief and those around him, to Casca's astonishment, spoke English, and reasonably good English.

  Semele explained that the South Seas trader, Clevinger, had once had a post on the island and had gone to some pains to teach the villagers English.

  The chief told them that this was the island of Navola Levu and that they were in the principal village, Navola. He asked many questions of Larsen and of others in the crew: where they had come from, how many days they had been at sea, and where they were bound for. His curiosity seemed endless.

  After some hours of this conversation and many, many bowls of kava, a number of women entered the house, carrying banana-leaf platters laden with steaming fish, cooked bananas, papayas, breadfruit, yams, cassava, taro, and a dozen other fruits and vegetables Casca couldn't identify. The chief seemed to have an unlimited appetite, and Casca noticed that each time he reached for food, everybody did the same.

  "If I'm here for long, I'll wind up as big as he is," Casca whispered to Larsen.

  The chief seemed to arrive at somewhat the same thought, and singled Casca out for special questioning, apparently because he was the most powerfully built of the ship's company.

  Gradually Casca became aware of a frown of puzzlement growing on the old chief's brow. A skilled interrogator himself, and the survivor of countless interrogations under all sorts of tortures, Casca realized that this quiet, casual questioner had plied him with such a complex skein of questions that he had tripped up here and there, and the wise old man had realized that there was more to Casca's past than he was prepared to relate.