Authors: Di Morrissey
W
ith the absence of Niah and Maya, Tyndall swung from depression, to anger, to rum-soaked pity. He took to heavy drinking bouts to try and obliterate the emptiness in his life and his inability to wrench back his daughter from the remote desert country. He cursed Niah for her defection but blamed himself.
Olivia was patient and tried to be understanding. But then, recalling the firm stance Tyndall had taken with her during her own crisis, she confronted him.
He was slumped back in his chair, unshaven, the inevitable bottle on his desk beside a jumble of papers, his skipper’s hat and a toy lugger which Maya had always played with. He glared at Olivia when she walked in.
‘You have your do-gooders face on,’ he said bitterly.
‘Now, John, this isn’t doing you any good. You can’t drown your sorrows, you’re only harming yourself.’
‘How original. Stop preaching.’
‘Look, I don’t care what you do in private, but falling around drunk in Sheba Lane bars and your sloppy attitude is threatening the company. The crews are starting to play up and Yoshi and Ahmed have had to break up several fights with our men. A quarter of the fleet have already left and we’re still messing around at the foreshore camp.’
‘How do you know what I get up to?’
‘It’s a small place, or had you forgotten? What you do is all over town in a minute. People are laughing at you, John. Don’t let them think you’ve gone to pieces because your mistress has run out on you.’
His eyes narrowed. ‘Is that what they’re saying?’
Olivia nodded.
‘So tell them to get knotted.’ He pushed the toy lugger off the desk with a sweep of his arm, reached for the bottle and swung around in his chair, his back to Olivia.
‘You are being very boorish, John. And downright rude,’ she snapped.
He ignored her, and took another drink from the bottle.
Olivia leaned across the desk, grabbed his shoulder and forcefully spun him around in the swivel chair to face her. Hushed with anger she shouted, ‘John Tyndall, you’re … a … an ill-mannered oaf.’ She turned and stomped out of the office, leaving a stunned and silent Tyndall clutching his bottle and feeling more than a little embarrassed.
Olivia sighed with frustration and went down to the shell shed and looked for Ahmed. He and Yoshi had
taken it upon themselves to start loading the Conrad and the Shamrock.
‘You tell tuan we got to go?’ he asked.
‘I did. Don’t know that it had much effect. He’s drinking. And he’s mad.’
‘No can wait for Niah come back. We gotta get up the coast quick smart. Mebbe we shanghai skipper and leave.’
Olivia gave a faint smile. It was the best suggestion to date.
Ahmed studied her for a moment, then asked, ‘You think Niah come back with Maya?’
‘Yes, Ahmed, I do! It’s only natural she went. She wanted to see her people, and the Captain hadn’t been paying her a lot of attention.’
Ahmed saw the fleeting guilty expression in Olivia’s eyes. ‘Tuan got many troubles and too much business. Niah want everything to be round Niah. She bored. She be back at end of season and everything be number one again.’
‘I hope you’re right, Ahmed. Is there any news of Captain Evans?’
‘No, mem. No worries. He at sea, working. Soon need supplies from tuan.’
Without saying so, both Olivia and Ahmed were glad their new white skipper was unaware of Tyndall’s state.
Thomas Evans was born and educated in Liverpool, but put to sea as a lad before the mast on the Sinclare Line. Eventually he worked his way up in ships trading to India and Australia. The lure of gold and
dreams of a fortune attracted him to the Marble Bar goldfields. He made no fortune and missed the call of the sea, so returned to Broome and skippered luggers. A quiet and sober man, he was a mason of Roebuck Lodge No. 56 and had known and respected Conrad Hennessy.
Consequently, Tyndall and Olivia had been delighted when Evans accepted their offer to skipper the
Annabella
.
Now if only Tyndall would come to his senses and focus on the business at hand, thought Olivia. She could understand him missing Maya and his frustration at not being able to reach them. She decided he needed a diversion and to heal the wounds of their recent falling out she sent him an elegant handwritten invitation to dinner.
He confronted her at the foreshore camp, producing the invitation card from his pocket.
‘What’s this, Olivia? What’s the occasion?’
‘Dinner, John. Please come, let’s say it’s a bon voyage and to wish Star of the Sea a good season.’
‘I hate stuffy dinner parties. All that wah-wah chit chat. Can’t stand ’em.’
‘I’d really like you to be there. Please.’
‘I might disgrace myself. Insult someone’s wife, tell off a stuffed shirt, drink too much.’
‘You can be fiendishly charming and beautifully mannered on occasion. Don’t be late,’ she said brightly, ignoring his gruff grunt as she left him, her fingers secretly crossed.
He arrived a little late, deliberately, but was decked out in his formal whites to please the hostess. At the gate it occurred to him that it seemed uncommonly quiet for a dinner party venue. There were no sulkies belonging to other guests and he wondered if he had got the time or date wrong. He fumbled in his pockets for the invitation card but realised he had left it at home. So he climbed the steps and was greeted by Minnie with a large smile.
‘You on deck duty tonight, eh, Minnie?’
‘Just little time. Help cook, then go home.’
Tyndall walked into the dining room and stopped in astonishment.
The table was set for two. Candles and flowers in the centre flanked by the best china and crystal. Olivia, dressed in a flattering gown of soft material in pale pink, her hair prettily coiled to one side of her head came to him with a mischievous smile.
For a moment Tyndall was at a loss for words. ‘Where are the other guests?’
‘Seems it’s just the two of us,’ she smiled. ‘Sit down, John. I wanted my respected business partner—and friend—for company. He’s been missing lately.’
‘You tricked me. I don’t like that.’ His tone was affable.
‘You wouldn’t have come otherwise and we need to talk.’
‘We talk all the time.’ He lifted the bottle of champagne and poured two glasses.
‘No, we don’t. Lately we’ve been arguing, disagreeing, and if we do communicate sensibly it’s for
business. I thought it time we started off on a better foot. Rebuild our relationship.’
‘What’s that mean? I don’t like beating round the bush.’ He handed her a glass.
She twisted the crystal stem in her fingers and spoke softly without looking at him. ‘We’ve both suffered a loss and while yours is only temporary, I think we need to offer each other a bit of emotional support.’ She looked up at him. ‘I get lonely and there isn’t anyone I can really talk to about how I feel. I miss Conrad’s company. I know I am always the subject of speculation in town and while the ladies are well meaning I always feel I have to be on my best behaviour. I can’t be myself.’
‘Like running around in Chinese pyjamas,’ he grinned.
They both laughed and clinked glasses. ‘That was a wonderful trip,’ sighed Olivia. ‘I think I must have the sea in my blood too.’
It suddenly occurred to Tyndall that the first time they went to sea together helped her come to terms with the loss of baby James. Maybe another sea trip would help with the grief she hid so well most of the time.
‘How about coming out for a couple of weeks on the Shamrock? We’ll get the rest of the fleet out, take a run up the coast and do some diving, resupply the fleet. The company might do me good, too.’
Relief swept over Olivia. ‘I think that’s a wonderful idea. Yes, I’d like that. Rosminah could help Minnie look after Hamish.’
‘He’ll be cranky at missing out.’
‘Too big a trip. Besides, he’s in school.’
The houseboy served the food and Olivia passed on what she’d read in the recently arrived London newspapers. Talk then moved on to the possibility of expanding the company.
As the dessert plates were taken away, Minnie appeared to say goodnight, looking concerned.
‘What’s up, Minnie?’
‘Bin lookin’ at the signs. Big wind comin.’
‘Can’t be a cyclone, too late in the season,’ said Tyndall.
‘Signs say big blow,’ said Minnie stubbornly and wished them goodnight.
Olivia lifted her eyebrows. ‘You don’t normally reject “the signs”. What do you think?’
Tyndall rose and looked at Olivia’s barometer hanging on the wall beside a brass ship’s clock. He tapped it and looked thoughtful. ‘It’s dropping. But not enough to panic.’ He walked to the verandah, picking up his skipper’s hat. ‘Thanks for a lovely dinner. And for … being a friend. Don’t worry. Star of the Sea is back on course.’ He put his hat on at a jaunty angle and stepped into the night, casting an anxious glance at the sky.
By morning the first clouds were scudding in on rising winds, the seas were building up, the barometer still falling. Olivia gave Minnie a rueful smile and headed to the office. She noticed some of the shopkeepers were shuttering their premises and people were taking precautions, stocking up on water and
provisions, lashing down what they could. There was an oppressive heaviness in the air.
She pulled out essential working files and documents to put in the safe only to find Tyndall had the keys. While she was kneeling beside the safe pondering the problem a high wind screeched in, rattling the wooden shutters and blowing an empty drum into the side of the building. It jolted her into action. She bundled the papers together and ran to the foreshore camp. All along the shore of the bay was frenzied activity as men climbed over boats securing gear and putting out additional anchors. On the coast the ocean rolled in a slowly heaving mass as if building up to regurgitate the very depths of the seabed.
Olivia paused for a moment, listening. Above the noise along the foreshore she heard a distant moan which sent a shudder through her.
At sea the fleet which had tried to run for shelter was becalmed in intense heat as if put in an oven and the air sucked out. It was so hot the pitch oozed from between planks, and metal burned skin.
On the
Annabella
, Captain Evans looked at the wildly dropping barometer and ordered the sails down, hatches battened and everything possible tied down or securely stowed. The two dinghies were hauled in and secured and storm anchors readied.
Early the next morning the cyclone hit the fleet near Broome, making a sudden and dramatic entrance with screaming winds, lashing rain and boiling seas. Some skippers attempted to run under storm sails.
Captain Evans and several others decided to use sea anchors and try to ride it out. He knew their chances of survival were slim.
The first casualty was an old schooner loaded with shell that lost its masts and rigging and was thrown by huge waves into a lugger. Both quickly disappeared beneath the waves leaving crew floundering in the sea. There was nothing Evans could do to help them. Despite the sea anchor astern, his boat was hurtling along under bare masts, the rigging rattling and shrieking in the wind. Evans had a lifeline around his waist tied to a bollard and worked the tiller desperately to prevent some of the waves breaking over the stern, threatening to sweep him overboard, and soon stripping the deck.
The dinghies went first, their lashings torn from the deck by waves. The pump went next, then the fo’c’sle hatch, causing the panic-stricken Koepangers to tumble onto the deck as water surged down. They rallied to shouted commands from Evans and quickly lashed canvas over the gaping hatch. While they were scampering to shelter in the main cabin aft another wave rolled over the stern, bringing down the main mast. When the water cleared off the deck there was no sign of the two Koepangers. Evans looked astern into the boiling sea but could see no one. He kicked at the door of the cabin and shouted for the divers who came on deck at once, sized up the situation, grabbed lifelines and immediately began slashing and cutting at the rigging and main-mast to get it overboard as fast as possible. They knew that survival depended on how fast they
worked and whether luck was on their side this day.
While the storm struck first at sea, it soon reached the coast south of Broome, slashing a path through the mangroves, hurling sheltering boats high onto the shore. It was the wild lashing of the cyclone’s tail that hit the town, but nonetheless wreaked great havoc. The swiftness of the attack had stunned Olivia, who had barely reached the buildings at the foreshore camp before the wind threatened to carry her off. Tyndall dragged her into one of the shell sheds as the upper storey of the flimsy building ripped away, the galvanised iron sheets hurtling through the air, slashing into and wrapping themselves around trees stripped bare of leaves by the howling winds.
They could barely hear each other speak and Olivia clutched at Tyndall, shouting in his ear, ‘What about Hamish?’
‘Don’t worry, Minnie knows what to do. She’ll look after him.’ He tightened his arm around Olivia as the doors to the shed and the roof were suddenly torn away.
‘Let’s get out of here, it’s going to be flattened. The iron could slice us to pieces,’ yelled Tyndall. Half-running, half-dragging Olivia, he staggered towards the beach. A lugger belonging to another pearler had been tossed high on the beach and lay on its side, its masts jammed in the sand, the bottom of the hull beam to the wind. They raced to it and climbed into a hatch for shelter.