The Smuggler's Curse

This one is dedicated to The Gang, the best bunch of shipmates a pirate could have: Carmel, Jan, Jannie, Liz, Ken, John, Judi, Richard and Terry.

I cannot believe it. My mother has gone and sold me. Sold me — her only child! And to the most notorious, cold-hearted sea captain ever to sail the wild, west coast. What sort of a mother would do such a thing, knowing I will be carried away in a black-painted sailing ship to face untold dangers and probably death a hundred times over on treacherous seas and in exotic ports?

I never imagined something like this could happen in these modern times. After all, it's nearly the twentieth century, and the British Empire outlawed slavery more than seventy years ago. Did Ma somehow miss that? Maybe she did. She is a busy woman.

Ma runs a hotel, all by herself, in Broome, one of the remotest towns in all of the Australian colonies, and maybe even the Empire. Ma is not big, hardly taller than
me, but she can be fierce, and she's scary when she gets angry. I guess she needs to be. More than one unruly crewman from the pearling luggers has been tossed out on his ear. And it is not just the sailors who upset her or behave badly. Faraway Broome seems to attract the scum of the earth, all searching for an easy fortune or escaping from the law.

Ma's hotel sits on a hill overlooking Roebuck Bay. ‘The Smuggler's Curse' reads the sign outside, but most people just call it the Curse. From the front verandah of the Curse, you can watch Broome's enormous tides rush in and out over the red mud flats lined with half-drowned mangrove bushes. At low tide the fleet of pearling luggers is stranded in the mud, hundreds of masts all leaning to the same side. Occasionally, a lone crewmember will be scraping a hull, or tramping through the mud carrying equipment.

To the east of us is the fly-infested desert. Its scorching winds blow over our streets most mornings, rattling the tin roofs and sending the temperatures soaring. Westward, as far as the eye can see, the endless blue sea fades into the blue sky, all the way to Africa. Sometimes, when I want to escape Ma and the pub, I take myself down to the very end of the new jetty and sit and watch the water. One time, I saw a fight between a huge shark and a crocodile.
They both fought like demons but eventually just gave up and swam away, badly hurt. It was the most exciting thing I've ever seen.

To the north lies Asia and the exotic Far East. I have not been there. In fact, I have hardly been anywhere, not even down south to Perth. I hope to one day, but at present, I have to stay in Broome to help out Ma. And go to school, of course, endlessly, day in and day out until I feel my overloaded head is going to burst with sums and spellings.

Ma and I get on reasonably well, most of the time. That is unless I do something she doesn't like, then relations get a bit frosty. Unfortunately, the list of things she doesn't like is extremely long, and lately, has been growing longer. She hates me sleeping in after daybreak, staying hidden, reading when she wants me to go to the Chinese market or run other errands, swimming at Town Beach when I am supposed to be catching fish, or worst of all, not cutting enough firewood for the hotel stove. In spite of her saying I read far too much, she still buys me books, ordering them from Shepherd's Bookshop in Fremantle.

Anyway, I might have been kidding myself to think I was an essential help to Ma, but what did I do that was so bad she would sell me? I cannot believe my life has turned to mud so quickly.

It all just happened. The air hung heavy and humid with the coming rains and Ma and Captain Bowen, skipper of the Black Dragon, were sitting on the verandah of the Curse taking the faint breeze together. I was clearing away glasses and wiping tables when I walked out onto the verandah and in on their conversation.

Captain Bowen had his purse in his hand and was counting out gold sovereigns, placing them one at a time on the table between their deck chairs.

‘That's it then,' I heard my mother say. ‘Ten pounds. That is a tidy sum, James. I hope he's worth it.'

The Captain saw me and scowled. ‘You, boy,' he announced abruptly. ‘As of tomorrow, you're crew on the Black Dragon.'

I stood, dumbfounded. Ma had evidently decided she needed the money, and the next thing you know, quicker than a crow can pick the eyes from a dead dingo, I belonged to Captain Black Bowen no less, the most infamous and dangerous man in the colony.

I can hardly breathe just thinking about that moment. Ma is tough, but this takes the cake.

In the early morning light, I stand beside Captain Bowen on the planks of the Broome jetty clutching a brown paper parcel containing my toothbrush, a jar of tooth powder, a few clothes and my three favourite books against my chest. I still cannot believe what my mother has done to me.

I feel as sad as I ever have, and the salt air makes my eyes water a little and my nose run. I look back at Broome in the shadowy dawn, expecting to see … I don't know what. Ma to change her mind at the last moment?

A lone dog howls outside the butcher's shop, echoing my sorrowful plight. In the harbour, a ship's dinghy eases its way through the pale green water. It is coming to take me away, perhaps forever. Possibly to my agonising
death. Overhead, seagulls cry mournfully, seeming to agree with the miserable dog.

Far out, near where the sea changes from pale green to deep blue, the sleek shape of the Black Dragon, Captain Bowen's rake-masted schooner, waits. For an instant, she looks more like an evil ghost ship than a fully-armed, fighting gaff-rigger. Worryingly, she seems like she has sailed right out of Hell and is headed straight back there, taking me along for the ride.

‘She's a looker,' says Mr Cooper, the tobacconist, sitting patiently on an empty ammunition box, fishing. At least, I hope the ammunition box is empty, with him dropping hot ash from his pipe as he is. He is in for a great big surprise if it is full of cartridges. I step back a little, just to be sure. ‘I hear she goes like a greased cat out of Hell,' he continues.

‘Yes indeed,' agrees the Captain. ‘But she's a witch to handle close to the wind. She needs two men on the wheel in a twenty-knot breeze. Still, in full sail, there's not another vessel on the seas that can catch her. Not a one. Leaves those stinking steamers in her wake. And she'll turn on a sixpence. Saved our bacon a few times that has, being able to spin like a top.'

The Captain looks up at the dinghy approaching. ‘Ahoy! Put your backs into it, you miserable scabs,' he
calls across the water to the dinghy's crew. ‘The tide's on its ebb and if we miss it, so help me, I'll …' He leaves the threat unsaid, but the four men pulling on the oars lift their stroke rate considerably.

The coxswain lets go the tiller and tosses up a rope to the jetty for the Captain to catch.

‘Get aboard, boy,' orders the Captain. ‘Quick as you go.' He stands looking at the horizon for a few moments and feeling the wind. ‘And don't slip. Fall in and the sharks can have you. With my compliments.'

I look back at him. Does he really mean it? I decide not to chance it, and make my way quickly down the slimy, algae-encrusted ladder, hanging on tight until a crew member grabs my arm and jerks me over the gap and into the dinghy. I half fall in and skin my knee. I want to cry out at the sudden pain, but manage to stop myself. Just. The Captain drops in effortlessly, and the crew push off and head out towards the schooner, the oars dipping quietly in and out of the smooth water.

I look back in case Ma has come down to see me off, but the jetty remains bare. All I can see is poor Mr Cooper without any fish. Far off, the dog howls again and, overhead, the squawk of the seagulls fades as we draw further from the land.

‘What are you looking so glum about, boy?' growls
Captain Bowen. ‘You should be glad to get away from Broome for a while, flea-bitten excuse for a shanty town that it is. I certainly am. Give me the open seas and a fresh breeze on my face any day. The pearling captains can have the stink, flies and heat, and each other. We'll be back in a month or so. It's not like you've joined the Royal Navy, away for years at a time. Why we ever put up with that damn nonsense is beyond me. This will be a grand adventure. Make a man of you,' he adds, implying I am certainly not one now. ‘You might even earn a pound or two.'

I cheer up a little. At least Ma has not sold me as an unpaid skivvy then, but as a real paid worker. A bit like an apprentice boy, maybe. I had just assumed I would be stuck at sea for good, with Ma not knowing if I were alive or dead and eaten by cannibals in far off Tahiti. I have read lots of stories about missionaries being boiled up and feasted upon by hungry islanders. What are the chances I will end up as someone's lunch?

We sit in silence with just the low grunt of the men and the quiet splash of the oars. After a few minutes, the Captain speaks again. ‘Why did your mother call you Red, boy? What sort of name is that?'

‘They call you Black, sir,' I answer without thinking.

The Captain fixes me with a steely gaze that freezes my blood. ‘I earned my name, Black Bowen, the hard way.' One of the sailors chuckles quietly, and several others nod in agreement.

The Captain doesn't speak to me again. He stares broodingily ahead. I have noticed when he's visited the Curse that he often seems plagued by dark, dismal contemplations as if demons possessed his soul. And maybe they do. But what do I care if he has dark thoughts. Maybe if he did not have such a guilty conscience he
might have happier ones.

The dark-painted hull of the Black Dragon eventually looms above us. From the bow of the dinghy, I have to leap to the ship's boarding ladder that hangs down the side of the midsection. This far out into Roebuck Bay, the wind has started to pick up and the dinghy tosses about a little. With one slippery misstep, I will be in the drink. Luckily, I manage to catch hold of the thick wet rope and then haul myself up the wooden rungs onto the deck without falling in and getting eaten.

I look around. The Black Dragon is almost ready to sail, the deck bustling with activity. There are about a dozen men in the crew, all busy at their tasks. Up near the bow, a Malay boy squats on the deck. He is dribbling thick, sticky tar from a big black pot onto the decking, filling the spaces between the planks. He seems to have more tar on himself than on the timber. He glances up at me for a moment and then continues with what appears to be an endless and thankless task. He looks as miserable as sin, but then it looks to be a terrible job. I suspect, though, that is not the worst job on the ship. I'm sure someone will be saving that especially for the new ship's boy.

A shadow falls across me. A giant of a man as tall as a door glares down, his eyes almost hidden beneath a black
peaked cap. Brass buttons on his open coat gleam in the early light.

‘Well, what do we have here? Some fresh meat for my rope, from the look of him. Shifty, weedy looking character if ever I've seen one. Very shifty. And skinny. By God, he's scrawny. I've seen more meat on a rock.'