The Smuggler's Curse (15 page)

‘Too right, murderous swine.'

‘That's enough entertainment for one day,' calls the Captain, looking at the sky and feeling the wind on his face. ‘We have work to do. Nor'-west to Aceh we head again. And I want those men not on watch to go below
and start patching up our poor sorry vessel. I hate to think of the state of my cabin, damn their eyes. And if they smashed any of my best claret I'll …' The Captain then smiles, remembering there is nothing more he can do now to the pirate crew.

Years ago, when I was young and the Captain first started visiting the Smuggler's Curse, I thought all the men called him Black Bowen because of the clothes he wore. I realise now I could not have been more wrong. He dispatched the pirates to Hell with no more thought than if he was just swatting an annoying blowfly. Behind the generous nature and the warm smile he sometimes displays, there must be a heart as cold and as black as the deepest coal mine. I feel I still have a lot to learn about the ways of adults.

The sweet smell of sunshine and over-ripe fruit wafts out from the land that we can just see in a heat haze on the horizon. After days of nothing but sea, salt and blazing sun, it seems almost unbelievable. I can feel the mood on board improve with each league that passes.

‘Fresh food by the time this day is out,' declares Sam Chi, picking up the smell. ‘They have fruit by the cartload out here. The ground is thick with it.'

‘Pineapples would be good,' says Bosun Stevenson, with enthusiasm. He is pale compared to the rest of us, who are now dark brown with the constant sunshine, but he seems a lot better. He is spending more and more time up on deck sitting in a chair borrowed from the Captain's cabin, with his feet well padded and raised on a cushion.

‘Red, aloft with you, if you please,' says the Captain. ‘And relieve Teuku on watch. Here, take my glass. I want to know when you spy a church tower. It should have a cross or a bell. It'll probably be white-washed as well. The missionaries seem to like that style.'

I tuck the telescope in my belt and set off up the ratlines, hand-over-hand, towards the crow's nest. As I climb, I realise how much easier it is now. I guess I must be getting stronger.

I spend just over an hour sitting on the crow's nest platform, peering through the Captain's telescope. It isn't a church I first notice, but a dozen squat masts against a wooden jetty, and the low, coconut fibre houses of a fishing village on the water's edge. Behind them, a hill rises steeply away from the coast. I adjust the telescope and can see a track that winds up from the houses to a church.

‘Captain!' I cry. ‘Port, east-by-south-east. A village and a church.'

‘Well done, lad. An extra ship's biscuit for you then,' he yells back, laughing.

‘Do I really have to, Captain?' I reply.

‘Get down from there, you cheeky blighter, before I tell Sam Chi you hate his cooking. Then you'll know about it.'

‘Captain,' asks Bosun Stevenson, a little later that morning. ‘I was thinkin' earlier. I hope you don't mind me asking, sir, but what do you want with a church? I've never known you to be a God-fearing man. I was under the impression that was my job on the Dragon.'

‘Oh, I fear him well enough, Bosun. Indeed, I fear him as much as any man. I've just no desire to meet with him face to face yet, and I've avoided that pleasure so far, no thanks to our Dutch friends or even our own Queen's men,' he laughs. ‘And a few jealous husbands. It's not a church I need, more like the missionary inside it. The islands hereabouts are covered in damn missionaries. They have a massive spider's web of connections all across the Straits. They mostly speak the lingo so they are the ones who know what is going on. Find me the local missionary and I'll find out where the Dutch Army are, and most importantly of all, where the guerrillas are hiding out, so we can trade our hold full of guns for gold. Though, looking about at this miserable village, I suspect gold may be a little on the scarce side.'

‘And I thought for a minute there you were going all holy on us,' laughs Bosun Stevenson.

‘Gorillas, Captain?' I ask. ‘Like the big monkeys from Africa?'

The Captain chuckles. ‘Guerrillas, Red. Locals fighting the Dutch colonial government. Anyone who wants to try to poke those greedy crooks in the eye is a friend of mine. From what I've heard, the locals have bloodied Dutch forces good and proper just lately. Now let's go and see what this village is really like. Mr Smith, prime the guns. Just in case. Bosun, at your call.'

‘Aye, Captain. Ready about!' yells the Bosun. He looks up from his chair near the binnacle.

As they have done hundreds of times before, the men sprint to their positions. ‘About!' Rowdy lets out the boom and Briggs spins the helm. The bow begins swinging to port, the sails flutter and collapse, the boom swings across as the jibs are hauled over, and the sails fill and billow again. It takes seconds. A wave carries the ship down into a small trough, as we ride it towards the shore.

‘Bosun,' asks the Captain. ‘Would you have a Union flag in your locker? We don't want these poor villagers thinking we are a warlord or a Dutch ship coming to do unspeakable things to them.'

‘No, we'll do speakable things to them instead,' laughs Bosun Stevenson.

‘Red, out on the bowsprit with you. Keep an eye out for reefs and rocks. This close in we can't be too careful.'

I make my way to the bow of the Dragon and clamber out in the net that hangs below the long bowsprit that juts forward, just like a crane's beak, and climb up on it. I wriggle my way out to the very end of the pole where the base of the jib is secured, climb up and stand, holding the forestay and settle in to watch out for underwater threats. I have to yell loudly and raise my arm if anything suspicious comes close. Luckily, the sea remains clear and the bottom sandy all the way to the shore and a semi-derelict jetty. A small shark swims by and I see the shadow of a much bigger one, but nothing else.

Briggs guides the ship slowly up to the end of the jetty and has the sails lowered from the mast top. Several crewmembers leap from the vessel, haul on the mooring lines and tie us on just as the ship stops drifting.

‘Well done, Briggs,' says the Captain. ‘Very smooth, Rowdy.'

Rowdy smiles, sort of, but does not say anything.

About a dozen small fishing junks, moored to rusted rings on the faded grey timber jetty closer into the shore, jerk sluggishly as small waves wash against their hulls.

I notice planks missing from the jetty and the sun and seawater have buckled many more. The stumps of the jetty, rotten and encrusted with weeds and barnacles, look about to collapse. Unlike our new long jetty at home
in Broome, this one has no fishing nets laid out for repair. Lobster pots are piled high with dried seaweed hanging from them. They don't seem to have been used for some time. The whole area looks deserted.

‘Looks like the fishing season's been bad this year,' says Bosun Stevenson, quietly.

‘Or another misfortune has visited itself upon this village,' replies the Captain.

Mr Smith looks towards the single street of deserted houses set back from the beach and taps the tips of his fingers together thoughtfully. ‘Could be pestilence. Though some 'uts 'ave been torched from the look of it. We 'ad rightly be a mite careful like.'

‘I sure hope it isn't pestilence,' I say. ‘I've seen that. Leprosy, I mean. Last year when we sailed down past the Shark Bay settlement to Geraldton. Infected every last man, woman and child. Not a living soul wasn't covered in sores, and bits missing. Horrible. And the smell. Even the rats had left.'

Bosun Stevenson shakes his head solemnly. ‘Even the rats, eh?'

‘Well,' continues the Captain. ‘We'll stay moored here at the end of the jetty, arm ourselves to the teeth and wait until the evening and see if anyone comes out. We'll soon know if these are pest houses or not.'

The way things have been going, I'll be surprised if pestilence isn't the least of our worries before we get home to Broome. If we ever do.

We lie about in the heat, squinting against the blinding sunlight. I have never before felt as hot, even in Broome, and that is a notoriously hot town. Ten minutes in the sun and it fries the top of your head and roasts any bare skin like a Sunday dinner. One basting of oil and I could have been used as pork crackling. That thought reminds me we are tied up on Sumatra Island, home of fierce headhunters. Are they cannibals as well? I look back at the shore hoping not to see anyone, especially any locals armed with six-foot-long blowpipes.

The Captain orders a sail rigged up over the boom and stretched to the sides of the boat like a tent to provide some shade, but even so, heat reflects off the deck like a skillet.

‘Captain!' calls Mr Smith later in the afternoon,
pointing to the shore. A man, obviously important, as he is dressed in a dark silk jacket with a red coloured pattern across his chest, leads several other men, slowly and warily along the jetty towards our ship. All wear dyed cloth wrapped around their heads to form turbans with brightly coloured feathers sticking up from them.

‘Mr Smith,' says the Captain quietly. ‘No chances. Up in the rigging with you. Briggs, you behind that pile of lobster pots.'

Mr Smith slings a rifle over his shoulder and scurries up the ratlines. Briggs, who has been sitting on the jetty dangling his feet over the edge, rolls away. The Captain tosses him a pistol. Several other members of the crew move behind cover.

The small group reaches us and the Captain stands to greet them. He steps across onto the jetty.

‘Permission, Capitan,' says the leading man as he salutes ceremoniously.

‘Granted, sir,' says the Captain, bowing courteously.

‘I see your flag. You are of the English?' the man asks warily.

‘Yes, I'm proud to say we are, of the English, by way of Broome,' replies the Captain.

‘I am the village chief,' he says. ‘I am here to welcome you then.' He bows deeply and continues, ‘Our
poor island has a history of invaders, I am sad to say. Over the centuries, we have had Christians and Hindus, Portuguese and the British. Chinese, of course, and now,' he pauses and winces. ‘And now for too many years, the hated Dutch.'

‘I understand they have not been … kind,' replies the Captain.

‘Indeed, they have not,' the chief replies. ‘However, I have the pleasure to welcome you to our village and invite you and your men to the celebrations on the sand of the shore of the sea, tonight. We will feast in honour of our ancestors, and a good season.'

‘Why, thank you, sir. That is a most unexpected pleasure. My men thank you, they are honoured by your kind invitation and would be delighted to attend,' says the Captain. ‘And tell me, sir, will your missionary be attending? I see his church up on the hill there.'

‘The missionary believes a good season can be seen as a sign from his God,' the chief says. ‘If his God can be bothered with such nonsense,' he adds, sighing slightly. ‘Oh dear, I hope you will not let my little heresy pass to Father Francis when you meet him. He was a man of strong belief and a little humour. I believe his humour, and his faith, lessened when the Dutch colonel visited our village a year ago with his forces. The soldiers behaved
… unwell, badly, if you understand of what I mean.' He stops and looks back at his village, his gaze lingering on the burnt out ruins at the far end of the cove. The chief pauses. ‘Your men are in need of the spiritual guidance?'

‘No,' says the Captain. ‘Well, quite possibly they are. Especially young Red here. I just need some advice on trade matters. We are also in need of provisions. We have been at sea for some time.'

‘Of course,' replies the chief. ‘I will send my man out tomorrow, just as soon as he has recovered from the festivities. He is known to be too keen on the tuak.'

‘Aren't we all,' laughs the Captain. ‘Until, tonight, sir.'

That evening the crew put on fresh shirts, and some of the men have a shave for the first time in days. As a group, we walk along the jetty to the shore where the festivities have started beneath some palm trees on the sand.

Red lanterns flare, several men play music on drum-like instruments and a big bonfire lights up the sand and reflects off the water in the bay. The breeze has turned balmy and made the evening much more pleasant than the oven-like day. On the fire, a goat is slowly roasting on a spit and smells delicious, and on tables further back, food is spread out on banana leaves.

People of all ages, from excited small children to wizened old grandmothers sit in a big circle watching, many laughing. Young women dance barefoot around the fire, skipping in time to the music while an ancient woman, much older than everyone else, glares disapprovingly at them and even more so at us. There do not seem to be many men in the crowd, which may explain what the leader meant when he said the Dutch had behaved “unwell”. Had they killed the village men? Is that why the fishing fleet sits unused and the jetty in such a poor state of repair?

The village chief comes to welcome us, his face smiling. ‘Capitan, we are honoured. Sit! Sit!' he says, pointing to drift logs dragged up the beach into a circle surrounding the enormous bonfire. Flames leap high and light everyone's faces.

As we sit, several women arrive with mugs of dark red liquid with fruit floating in them.

‘Firewater. Drink!' he commands. ‘One legacy of the Portuguese. There is plenty.'

Who am I to refuse? It would be bad manners.

A couple of hours later, I am tired and bloated from too much food and firewater. The heat from the bonfire and the dancing have worn me out, so I slip down onto the sand and lean against a log, half-dozing I suppose. I
should not have been drinking the firewater, but it is safer than fresh water.