South Pacific Affair

Chapter VI

It started off better than any Hollywood movie—the two of us naked on an islet, alone and without a care between us; a happy dream come to life—and ended leaving me confused, restless, more certain than ever I couldn't make it with Ruita.

Ruita said, “I will show you all of the old ways. Actually I know more of the ancient times than islanders who never have left their villages, for in Papeete and in Sydney I made an effort to study these things in many old books. First, we must make a shelter.”

She tied a sharp hunk of coral in her hair, then climbed a coconut palm and, using the stone as a knife, cut off many branches while I stood below like a dummy, gaped at the graceful way she climbed, her strong legs hugging the palm trunk. When she came down, still using the sharp coral, she split the palm leaves down the center, then quickly wove them together to make a mat. Ruita made a number of these, while I stood around helpless; mats for us to sleep on, mats hung on sticks driven into the sandy ground to form a lean-to. Then we found enough coconut fiber around the various crab holes—the fiber the crabs had cut away in getting to the coconut meat—to put under our sleeping mats till they were fluffy as a mattress. Ruita stretched out on a mat and held out her arms to me as she said, “Come see how soft it is.”

“I know how wonderfully soft it is,” I said, going to her.

After, we used another piece of sharp coral to drive holes in one of the three eyes of a coconut and drank. Then, since we were both sweaty and the sun was out full blast, we took a quick swim. I was knocked out, still hung-over from the feast. While I dozed on and off in the shade of the lean-to, Ruita made a crude cloth by weaving the dry root fibers of the coconut husk together. Her nimble fingers moved with tireless speed and by the time I finally got my lazy male can off the mat, she had a fairly big piece of cloth. I kissed her, asked if she was making a skirt and she said, “Maybe later. I will make a cloth for you too, for too much sun on our middle parts is not good. For now I make this into a bag. See if you can find stones along the beach sharp enough to be used as a knife, then sharpen some heavy sticks so we can husk the nuts.”

I walked along the shore—you could circle the islet in about three minutes of slow walking—and didn't find any sharp stones, except small ones which nicked my feet. Walking barefoot was never one of my favorite sports, especially since they say you catch fey-fey and several other tropical diseases this way. When I passed the canoe I sat down and took a cigarette out of my pants. Then I got my knife and cut and pointed a few good strong sticks. Bringing these back to Ruita I held up the knife, said, “I cheated.”

She laughed. “Like the first popaas here—they cheated, too. Now I shall show you why one never need worry about food as long as they are in the shadow of a coconut tree. Get me an armful of brown nuts—not the new green ones, but the dark brown ones.”

There were many nuts around the base of the trees, most of them eaten away by rats and crabs, but I managed to pick up five good ones. And if you stare at a coconut husk long enough it spooks you—looks too much like an old shaggy head.

Ruita had driven one of the sticks into the sand, sharp end up, and on this point she stripped the husk off the nuts, then opened them. She shredded the white meat of the coconut with a jagged stone, the meat falling into the fiber bag she had made. While she worked on the other nuts, she had me cleaning out the half-shell of the first nut, and after it had dried in the hot sun for many minutes, I rubbed it down with coral stones, polishing it to a deep smooth brown; we had our first bowl.

When the bag was full of coconut shreds, Ruita squeezed it over the bowl till a thick creamy milk oozed out. Covering the bowl with a palm leaf, she said, “This will be for supper. Now we must hurry and get some crabs before the sun goes down.”

“Take it easy, I'll get them,” I said, although I had never caught a crab before—usually Eddie bagged them. Coconut crabs look awkward but although I ran and lunged after several of them, they always disappeared down their holes in the sand ahead of my hand. Ruita thought the crabs and I were putting on a comedy act; she laughed till she cried. She said it was just as well I couldn't catch them, for if I had managed to grab one by its claw—which the crab waved around like a boxer—I would have lost a slice of skin.

She made a long piece of string by braiding strips of coconut fiber, then tied one end onto a stick. A few green young palm leaves were attached to the other end of the string. Ruita quietly approached a crab hole and, using the stick like a fishing pole, jiggled the palm leaves over the hole. Soon as the crab got his claw on them, Ruita jerked him out of his hole and up in the air, expertly grabbed him behind his claw. She got four or five crabs, tied them together, then hunted around for a coconut tree with a nut whose covering was not fibrous, sliced the husk up with my knife, said, “Eat a piece. This will be our salad.”

“Eat coconut husk?”

“Of course. There are many types of nuts. Try it.”

To my surprise the husk tasted as crisp as cool lettuce, made a fine salad. With salad, drinking nuts, and juicy crab legs dipped in sea water and coconut milk, we had a good supper as we watched the sun go down.

We were both tired and quickly fell asleep as soon as we hit our mats, embracing tightly for warmth and waking several times during the night to change positions, warm the exposed parts of our bodies. Toward morning it rained lightly and we got as far under our lean-to as possible, but it wasn't far enough, so we took turns covering each other and Ruita said, “Today I will make more mats—we need a roof.”

“I don't mind this,” I said, and I didn't. It was a good feeling, the cold rain on my back and legs, Ruita's hot body against my chest and stomach.

We were up before daylight, both cold and damp, rubbed each other down with our hands to keep warm, then started work as soon as it was light. Ruita made enough mats to roof over our lean-to, then more fiber cloth to cover our hips. I polished up several coconut bowls, tried my luck at crab casting. After awhile I got the knack and managed to bag four of them without being nipped.

We slept a long time in the heat of the afternoon, then at night when the tide was low Ruita tied my knife to a stick and we went knife-fishing in the shallow water. She wanted to make a fire by rubbing sticks into fibre but I cheated again—no point in carrying this Scout stuff too far— by using my lighter, first kicking a tiny crab out of my pants pocket. Using bundles of coconut husks tied around a stick for a torch, we carefully waded in knee-deep water till we came upon a sleeping fish. Ruita would spear him the first time, but I always missed—to her delight I struck at an angle while the trick was to have the knife enter the water absolutely vertical, otherwise the water deflects the blade.

However, the fish I missed merely swam out of the light of our torch and went to sleep again, so in less than an hour we had enough for a tremendous meal.

I don't know why I use the term “hour” for we lost all track of time. I don't even know how many days we spent there; about eight or nine, at least. It was an ideal existence—for a time. We arose whenever we felt like it, ate when we were hungry, slept any time, made love any place. One cold and stormy night we spent beside a fire in our lean-to, talking all night long—about books, movies, radiation, Australia, America, even religion.

There wasn't a thing to worry about. Food was always within reach, we had a sandy beach and the clear Pacific at our doorstep for swimming and bathing, and if we lacked drinking water—we had nothing in which to catch the rain water—a cool drinking nut was as satisfying. True, we only had fish and nuts and crabs for food, but Ruita was so good a cook, the food never grew tiresome. We ate fish: raw, roasted, broiled, and once she merely tossed a big ten-pound fish on a fire of coconut husks, not even cleaning it. When I asked why, Ruita said, “This will be like fried fish—the guts provide our grease.”

The fish cooked till it was burned black, then Ruita tossed it into the sea, cleaned out the insides and the charred out side—and we had one of the finest-tasting dishes I'd ever eaten.

I sometimes wondered why I was making such a fuss over a little thing like a well-done fish, and realized that in our island it was the little things that counted—the extra few minutes' sleep in the warm sun, the heat of our pressed bodies against the night cold. If possible, I was more in love with Ruita, for I found her so capable, astonishing with knowledge of so many things, intellectual and physical... and last, and never least, the deep heights of passion we reached—a passion I never thought that I, at least, had in me.

It seemed a paradise, every man's dream come true. Yet after a while, maybe four or five days, I had to admit I was bored. I didn't know exactly what I wanted to do, except I wanted to do something. There wasn't a lick of work to be done, no problems, no need for even getting up if I didn't feel like it. Yet I was restless, jumpy. It frightened me because I could see the same thing happening if we were together on Numaga... this stupid restlessness building up till I did something crazy to hurt her—like taking off, or losing myself in a bottle. I tried to talk myself out of it, began lying awake at night and telling myself there were millions of men in the world tied in knots by tension and worry who would give an arm for what I had. But it seemed as if I had too much of peace and quiet. Not too much of Ruita; two people were never as intimate, sharing every second of the other's life—I wasn't tired of Ruita. It was simply this gnawing rotten feeling of wondering what was going to happen next in a little world where nothing was ever going to happen.

One morning after we had taken our swim—and bath— in the lagoon and were walking along the beach to dry off, I began to trot, then to run. Ruita ran with me, not the knock-kneed jerky style most girls use, but with long firm strides. We circled the island several times, running like sprinters, sweating and fighting for air. I was pooped and dropped to the sand, trying to get my breath back. Ruita walked around slowly, her chest heaving. Finally we both took a dip and lay on the sand. After many minutes of silence she asked, “Why did you run like that?”

“I don't know. I guess I wanted to tire myself out.”

“But why do you wish to tire yourself?”

I-shrugged. “Sometimes a man simply wants to exercise.” Of course I was lying. I'd run because I suddenly felt I had to do that stupid something, have some action.

She didn't say anything and I turned over to give my stomach a chance to dry. She laughed and ran a finger over the deep tan of my middle, said, “Now you are like an islander, like us.”

I wanted to say, “I wish I were,” but instead I merely asked, “Speaking of the islanders, how soon do we have to go back to the others, to Forliga?”

Ruita sat up. “Aren't you happy here, Ray?”

“Can you doubt my happiness?” I asked, pulling her to me, feeling the smooth coolness of her skin against mine. “It's... uh... just... Eddie will be expecting me. And Nancy must be wondering...”

“We do not ever have to return. If we wish we can stay right here for the rest of our lives.”

“You mean that?” I asked, floored by the idea.

“What reason is there for us to return?” Ruita asked, using French as she always did when excited or rattled. “Oh, Mama will come out to visit us and so will Eddie. But we have land, food, shelter, and each other. That is enough for a good life. In time we'll probably have children and be even happier.”

Holding her close to me, I looked into her cool eyes as I asked, “Would you be content with that?” And I told myself that there wasn't any real reason why we shouldn't stay here and be happy, yet I knew I'd blow my stack if I had to spend another week in this solitude.

She said, “Darling, if you want, I would try it—”

“No, honey, that isn't what I asked. Look, in a crazy confused way, your answer is very important to me. Is this what you want most, our remaining on this islet?”

She shook her head. “No. What I want most is to live on Numaga with you.”

“Why there instead of here?”

“Mainly because there is more to do there. In time I would get a little bored here.”

I kissed her. “Thanks! You've taken a load off my mind. This... uh... bored stuff was making me think I was cracked.”

She kissed me, little, light, hot kisses. “Is that what troubles you, you are bored with me?”

“Nothing troubles me.”

“Oh, yes. Something worries you, Ray. I feel it. This small drawing back, this unknown thing holding you apart from me at times.”

“That's nonsense. You dream it,” I lied, and then and there I made a large mistake. For if I had told her the truth we might have talked it out, saved both ourselves months of unhappiness. “What are you handing me, this East is East and never the... whatever it is... shall meet, slop?”

She tried to pull away from me, her eyes angry, but I held her tightly. She said, “That is a... a... mean thing, a cruel thing to say. We have found in our being together the greatest contentment I will ever know. Surely you must feel the same way.”

“Forgive me, I was trying to be clever. A minor Western sickness—we must make clever talk all the time. Darling, there's no need to twist words. I have been a little restless here because I'm not conditioned to lying around all day. Although I try to deny it, I suffer from another form of sickness—a reflex known as work.”

She kissed me, then laughed, her warm breath fanning my lips. “My Ray, do not sound so ashamed. No one can live in... this scientific name I learn years ago... yes, in a vacuum. One of your silly popaa words that—”

“Don't say 'your'—it puts a thin wall between us.”

She nodded, her black hair brushing my forehead and eyes. “I am sorry. I do not wish even a cobweb between us. Now do not be angry if I use another popaa saying I learned in school—all work and no play makes Jack a dull chap. And the same goes for all play. But here we have no difference between work and play. The thing is to have a number of ways to play. You understand me?”

“Aha.”

“Aha?” she repeated. “What does that mean?”

“A slang way of saying yes.”

“Ah, I have heard much of this slang, some day you will teach it to me. Back on my island we will each have many things to teach the other. We will not only have what we have here, but also a fine house that needs little daily care, and an ice box in which many kinds of foods may be stored. And we will have a radio to be smug about the news of the peoples outside our island. Also, there will be my pearl cultures, which take up much time and are a wonderful game. We have many books and magazines, records, boats, and if we wish, we can do some 'work' by making copra. Oh yes, and there will be other people around us—not too many to spoil our privacy, but they have problems, gossip, and that is interesting. Now and then we shall go to Papeete, see the awful movies and the swaggering drunken tourist popaas, and we will be disgusted, happy to run back to Numaga again. Now, I have been waiting for you to say it first, but I will— shall we go back to Forliga?”

I nodded. She moved in my arms and I said, “But I think we have one or two things still to do.”

Late in the afternoon we put on our clothes and left the islet—not without some regret on my part, regret mixed with relief—and paddled back to Forliga. Passing the Hooker, I saw how low she was in the water, knew we had a full hold of copra. We put the canoe up on a wooden rack and waded ashore. Some kids told us Nancy was in the guest hut. Eddie was also there, along with the Chief, and several other islanders. They greeted us with the greatest casualness, as if we had merely returned from an hour's sail.

The radio in Titi's hut next door was playing a watered-down version of “La Jazz Hot” but we could barely hear it. He had probably shot his batteries playing the set all during the wedding feast. Nancy kissed Ruita and merely asked, “How are you, dear?”

“Fine, Mama. How is Titi's wife?”

“Very good and very large. I think she will have twins.”

Eddie slapped me playfully in the gut, said, “Got the boat loaded. Damn copra is almost turning rancid.”

The old guy with the rusty outboard shook my hand, said he had been waiting for me to fix his motor. I told him, “I hope I'll have the time. With a full hold, we will sail soon, take the Adams' home to—”

“You'll have time,” Eddie cut in. “There's a smallpox epidemic going around. The governor in Papeete has ordered all boats- to stay in port till further notice.”

“When did that start?” I asked, as though it made any difference when it started.

“We heard it on the wireless last week,” Nancy said. “Started in the Cook Islands. So far there have only been a few deaths and I suppose they'll have it under control if they can keep it from spreading.”

Cumber, the Chief, said a fast prayer in Tahitian, the other joining him; every family in the atolls had lost one or more people in the last great epidemic—flu. There was a moment of sad quiet broken by Ruita saying, “I look forward to staying here. Mama, I am hungry for rice and bread and...”

Cumber said softly, “We have only fish and fruits—and nuts. The wedding emptied the store and of course there hasn't been a trading vessel since then.”

I looked at Eddie and he shook his head. “Every can of food on the Hooker has been sold days ago.”

I caught Ruita's eyes and we both smiled—admitting for the first time how tired we'd been of our nut and fish diet on the islet.

I went down to the boat, to change from my “good” clothes —now slightly mildewed and sun-bleached—to a pair of trunks. Eddie came along the dock, asked me to throw him a cigar. He said, “In the hot sun the stink is pure awful. Hope we-can get away before the copra really goes rotten. I'll take out my stuff later, so you and Ruita can use the cabin nights.”

We had supper in Titi's hut—of fish, nuts, and a kind of white starch so rubbery I could hardly chew it, much less swallow the damn stuff. Cigarettes were still plentiful, and we smoked and listened to the faint sounds of Titi's radio. Then Ruita and I walked down to the boat, like old married people, without either of us mentioning it. And nobody else mentioned it, either.

Exactly thirty-four days went by in peace and quiet—and I counted the days for I monitored the radio news each afternoon. Ruita and I lived aboard the Hooker, sharing our privacy only with the roaches and copra bugs. She even put curtains of old pareu cloth on the portholes to add the proper domestic touch. Each dawn we left the boat to escape the copra stink, and hung around the village and gossiped. Sometimes we took hand lines and went to the lagoon entrance, spread crushed hermit crabs on the surface to attract the fish, and would bring back a canoe full of big fish.

I carefully took the old man's outboard apart, working whenever I felt like it, always surrounded by a chattering and eager audience. None of the parts were broken and I carefully cleaned them, scraped the rust off, oiled everything. When I had it together again, the old duck wanted to use it at once, asked me for gasoline. We had a forty-gallon tank in the Hooker and while I could have spared a pint or so, I used all the oil I had cleaning the motor. I tried, without success, to explain to the old man that he needed lubricating oil in his gas, and that he must run the motor in a barrel of fresh water as soon as he removed it from his canoe. Although he didn't like the idea he agreed to wait till a trading schooner appeared and he could get oil.

I was not only the master mechanic of Forliga—I also repaired bicycles—but the center of great interest for another reason. Each day we gathered around Titi's faint radio to hear the latest news from Papeete. The smallpox had spread to another of the Cook Islands, and several mild cases had appeared on Mopelia, due to some Rarotonga islanders making a long canoe trip there and carrying the germs. The ban on travel still stood, and the radio announced the Rarotongans would be jailed—some day.

The Chief, as part of his duties, listened to the news and then reported it to others, but by the time it had spread around, it was so distorted it didn't make sense. For example, gossip on Forliga had it that the Rarotongans had already been shot, and since they were from a British Island, war was certain between France and England. To simplify matters, I began taking the news down in shorthand—which floored everybody, including Ruita and her mama. Nobody could understand how the “worm,” as they called my shorthand figures, could possibly have any meaning. Several times a day I would be stopped on the village street, and asked to “please read the worms.” I'd take out my little battered notebook and read the latest news on the smallpox.

Ruita was so impressed at this odd “language,” I sat up half of one night trying to tell her how it worked, what the job of a court reporter was like. This started us on a long discussion of crime, something the island mind couldn't conceive of. Why should a man have to steal food when there was so much in the sea and on the trees, and if he did, why punish him? He was hungry.

Early one morning there was much blowing of conch shells and children racing through the village shouting that a schooner was coming. Everybody trooped across to the sea side of the atoll and there, still a good many miles off, was a large schooner. She was too far away to see clearly and of course nobody had any glasses. Cumber swore he had a pair “someplace” and even sent two of his daughters to look for them, till his wife reminded him he had sold them to a schooner sailor months ago for cigarettes and a silver cocktail shaker.

Cumber said, “It is strange. The ban on travel still exists, yet here is a schooner. Maybe it is good. At least we will be able to buy flour and tinned foods.”

“Perhaps it is a ship from Australia and they know nothing of the ban,” Ruita suggested.

Eddie, who had his hands to his eyes and was staring hard, like an old tar, said, “Naw, why should a ship from Australia be making directly for this atoll? Have to pass the Austral Islands and they would be stopped there. That's an island schooner, all right. I've seen those lines before.”

“No island boat would dare violate the government ban,” Cumber said, the voice of authority.

After much talk and speculation, we all went back to the village for coffee—without milk or sugar—and then returned to watch the schooner. By this time she was closing in on the atoll and Eddie shouted, “Hell, that's the Shanghai!”

There wasn't any doubt; even I could see it was Buck's boat.

The Chief said, “He may not have a radio, is not aware of the ban.”

“He's got a receiving set, for sure,” I said. “And where could he have been the last half dozen weeks that he didn't hear the news? The Shanghai is never at sea more than a few days at a time.”

Cumber nodded. “That is true. He has undoubtedly been at the other atolls, with his divers. Well, I shall inform him he can not land here.”

Cumber went to his hut to put on a clean T-shirt, shoes, and a white drill jacket, signs of his authority. We stayed to watch the schooner. As she sailed nearer we could see sailing canoes piled on her deck and Eddie said, “I'll lay odds this is the same bunch of divers he signed on at PellaPella.”

“I don't see a soul moving on deck—this is a sick ship!” Nancy added.

“Cumber will stop him from landing,” Ruita said.

“I don't think so. That Swede will out-talk him. We have to make absolutely certain nobody lands from that ship.” The old lady was looking at me as she said this.

I told her, “I doubt if even Buck would ignore the Governor—Papeete can be rough when they want to.”

“You don't know these miserable old traders,” Nancy said. “Buck will count on the fact that in time, soon as the sickness is over, the islanders will forget about this, not bother to report him. And he's right, Cumber hates to make out reports. If he has sick divers, Buck will want to dump them on Forliga, go on, and then return here months later to pick up those who are still alive.”

“We don't know if there are sick people on the ship,” Titi put in. “I would certainly like a bag of flour and some rum.”

“No, we can't allow any of his goods to come ashore,” Nancy began. “One bug is all we need to start a—”

Eddie cut in. “We can all stop guessing. She's at the channel now. Pretty narrow for a schooner her size—on a windy day they'd pile her up.”

We hurried to the lagoon side in time to see the Shanghai breeze through the channel, less than a yard of free water on either side of her hull. She dropped anchor and Cumber, along with two elderly men, paddled out. We watched them being hailed from the deck by Buck and Teng: the Chief went up the rope ladder. The faces of many islanders appeared at the rails, all looking toward us. After what seemed hours, probably was fifteen minutes, Cumber climbed back down to his canoe and was paddled back to the coral quay. At the same time a work boat was lowered from the stern of the schooner.

Cumber told us, “Buck say he receive special permission for this one voyage from Papeete.”

“Are there any sick aboard?” Nancy asked.

“He show you the permission in writing?” Eddie put in.

The Chief looked unhappy; his dudes were both weighing him down and confusing him. He held up his hands for silence. “There are a few sick on the decks. As for the permission, I did not see it, but he assured me he had it from the Governor personally.”

“You made it plain he could not land here?” Nancy asked, her voice loud.

“No. He has permission. I can not refuse him. Also, some of the sick have relatives here.” Cumber looked around at the other islanders for support. “After all, one cannot be so hard as to turn away sick relations who—”

“Listen to me,” the old woman almost shouted, speaking carefully in the old island dialect. “We cannot be of help to the sick, we have no medicines here. Nor do we have water and food for an extra half a hundred people, and be assured they will not stop here for a few days but for many months. If a single sick person comes ashore, many of us will die. We can only help them by insisting the schooner takes them to Papeete at once!”

Cumber shook his head. “If he has permission, it is beyond my power to stop him from landing. Also what would our relatives think if—”

“Have you forgotten our dead of the last epidemic!” Nancy screamed. Ruita tugged at her arm, whispered in French, “Mama, you are making a scene.”

There was an uneasy feeling in the air. The islanders were afraid of any sickness, yet they couldn't be so harsh as to turn sick friends and relations away. Even Cumber muttered, “It is difficult to know what to do. We have some iodine and boxes of aspirin here, perhaps—”

“Iodine and aspirin!” Nancy yelled. “You are killing these people and ourselves! They must go to Papeete where there is real medicine! You must understand what this ship brings!”

Eddie said, “Nancy, there's a long boat coming in now.”

We had all been so busy watching the old lady no one had kept an eye on the ship. A boat was pulling toward the dock. I saw Buck and Teng, and at the oars was a powerfully built blonde young man wearing a pair of gaudy pink trunks.

Buck and Teng jumped ashore while the blonde man tied up the boat, rested on the oars. On closer inspection he looked a bit flabby around his gut, but he had wide shoulders and strong legs—and the flattened nose and rough face of a fighter.

Teng and Buck were dressed in clean pants and shirts and smiles: Buck's Andy Gump puss looked like a nutcracker when he came up with the selling smile.

Mr. Teng took out a handful of hard candies and started to give them to the kids.

Nancy grabbed his hand, but he threw the candies into the air and the kids caught them with cries of delight, started eating. Teng told the old lady, “I bring small gifts for the children. What is wrong in that?”

Nancy asked in Tahitian, “When did you get permission to sail? Certainly if you were in Papeete they would never have allowed you to sail with sick people aboard.”

“We got it on the radio,” Buck said, his deep voice giving his words a sound of truth. “We had no sick when we sailed from Papeete. In fact we have only a few cases now—nothing really bad. The bad cases were buried at sea. We tried landing at another island but were refused. Well, we're running low on fresh food—although we have much flour and rice and canned meats,” he added, watching the faces of the islanders. “So I wirelessed the governor and was instructed to put in here.”

“Crab dung!” Eddie snapped, pointing at the rigging of the schooner. “You ain't got no sending set on there!”

I said, “I've been taking down the news from Papeete. I never heard them radio you any permission.”

“Ah, the rowboat traders,” Buck said, as if noticing us for the first time. “Did you get permission to land here?”

“We've been here for two months,” I said.

Buck slipped me what he thought was a charming smile. “Tommy was happy to see your boat for he has wisely given up Judo and has something better.” He waved a big hand at the man in the long boat. “Allow me to introduce one of your fellow Americans—Kid Marson. He was a famous boxer back in 'Frisco. Golden gloves, he says, were awarded him. Mr. Teng hired him on the spot I guess you can imagine why.” Both Buck and Teng sort of leered at Eddie.

Teng nodded. “This confirms our story, for we were in Papeete when we hired Marson. He was on the crew of a large American yacht. When the yacht was ready to leave, Marson and another sailor locked themselves in the freezer, were hospitalized for frostbite. By law they had to receive their passage money, but unfortunately, Mr. Marson spent his passage on girls, so we hired him. You Americans are rather crazy. The point is, it was then the governor gave us special permission.”

“If you spoke to the governor,” Cumber began, but he never had a chance for Nancy shouted, “You lying scoundrels! First you received permission on the wireless, now you say it was given to you in person. Where is the order?' '

Buck turned to Cumber. “There is too much talk about nothing, empty wind. The governor said he would put it on the wireless. Would you deny hungry people, relatives, fresh food? And we can pay for it with flour and canned foods, which I hear you are in need of.”

“Or with money,” Teng said, flashing a heavy roll.

“No one should go without fresh food and water,” the Chief agreed. “And we could use some—”

There was the sound of splashing and we looked out at the Shanghai to see sailing canoes being thrown over. Some islanders dived after their canoes, others were being carried down the rope ladder. On the deck people were busy untying the rest of the canoes.

Cumber and some of the older islanders had a short huddle. From the few words I could make out they wanted to call the Council, which was the Chief's cabinet, only nobody could recall exactly who was on this august body, it never having met. Teng kept talking loudly about the fine trade goods on the ship.

“Have you oil for motors?” the old joker with the outboard asked.

“As much as you need in exchange for three dozen drinking nuts,” Teng told him. “Also rum, canned pineapples, much rice, and many sweets.”

Nancy grabbed my arm, whispered in my ear, “If they land, Louise may die—the entire population can be wiped out!”

I looked at Eddie and didn't know what to do. I said, “Look here, Buck, if you're so concerned about the health of your divers, why don't you rush them to Papeete instead of horsing around here?”

“I have no business with you, American. There isn't any real sickness on my boat. Look at me.” He pounded on his barrel chest.

“You are probably full of penicillin—your own private supply,” Ruita said.

Buck addressed the islanders. “You know yourself it makes bad sense to go to Papeete. My divers only wish to return to PellaPella, when they have rested a day or two. In Papeete they would get lost, spend their diving money.”

“That is true,” Cumber said. “It is most easy to spend money in Papeete.”

I glanced around to ask Nancy what she expected me to do, but she was gone.

A kid on the outskirts of the crowd started shouting and we saw some of the sailing canoes were being slowly paddled toward the dock. Buck turned to the Chief. “Cumber, your own cousins are coming to ask for a few nuts and some fish. Will you turn them away?”

“No. I cannot. Let them come and we will feed them. It will be for a short time only and—”

There was an assortment of noises on the dock: the faint boom of the waves on the reef, the sound of the wind, the talk of people—yet the bark of the carbine cut through all other sounds, leaving only a sudden and deep silence. Even the people in the canoes heard it—or saw the flash—stopped paddling.

Nancy Adams was standing at the end of the village street, holding the rifle. I guess she must have been carrying it around in her bags all the time. She fired another shot, over the heads of the canoe people, then turned the gun on Buck, telling him in a low voice, “I am giving you four minutes, by my count, to get back to your long boat, tell your passengers to return to the schooner with their canoes, then pull anchor and leave.”

“These people only ask food,” Buck began. “A small—”

“If one canoe comes ashore, I will shoot your dirty heart out, so help me God!”

“Mama, be careful!” Ruita cried, walking slowly towards the old woman. “Let the Chief make the decision.”

“It is wrong to let people go hungry,” Cumber said, eyes on the rifle. Others in the crowd chorused agreement.

Nancy said, “Then fill several of our canoes with nuts and fruits, take them out to the schooner.”

“Ah! That is right thing—for all,” Cumber said, relief in his voice.

“Buck!” Nancy shouted, “You have only three minutes more of life! Start back to your schooner!”

“Now see here, you have no goddamn right to—” Buck began, then started toward Nancy. As I jumped at the big Swede, Eddie either hit him in the gut or kneed him—all I saw was the giant crumbling to the quay like air running out of a balloon.

Teng didn't move, but the blonde muscleman jumped up on the dock, started for Eddie, then stopped abruptly when Nancy fired a shot near his head. She said, “I have five more shells left in this clip. And you have less than two minutes left!”

Kid Marson had stopped so suddenly, as if he had walked into an invisible wall, that the islanders began to laugh and Cumber yelled, “It is decided! You,” he pointed to Teng, “go back to your boat at once. The rest will bring nuts and fruits here and I will get three canoes. Hurry!”

While Teng and Marson pulled Buck to his feet, Cumber cupped his hands and shouted out over the lagoon to the people waiting in canoes that food was being brought out to the schooner. Ruita told him to add that Buck was taking them to Papeete for medicines. We couldn't hear their response—they were on the lee side of the atoll—but I felt certain they wanted to land, more than anything else.

Marson helped Buck into their boat, Teng stood on the dock for a moment, as if hesitating. Nancy fired another shot —coral dust jumped at his feet. Teng leaped into the boat, yelled at Marson to take the oars.

I wondered if Nancy knew the bullet might have easily ricocheted and killed Teng... and I felt a little like a coward. I told myself I hadn't butted in because I didn't want to act the all-wise popaa telling the natives what to do. But at the same time I felt foolish. In actual size I was the biggest man on the atoll, except for Buck and Kid Marson. Yet it had been Eddie who had dumped Buck and a little old woman who threw a gun on them.

Empty canoes were brought to the beach, and the islanders got busy filling them with nuts and limes, papayas, even a jar of pickled sharks' livers. Nancy came over to me, the carbine cradled in her left arm. Ruita followed, eyeing the old woman with awe and admiration. Mrs. Adams said, “Ray, I want you to write down as much of this as you remember, now, in your shorthand, so we can give Papeete a full report if Buck makes any trouble.”

I dug in my pocket for my notebook and pencil, thinking —Big Ray, flattening them left and right with shorthand!

“He's smack in the wrong, won't open his yap,” Eddie said, taking the gun from Nancy's arm. “These carbines are good old rifles—nice and light. Where did you buy it?”

“In Samoa,” Nancy said, her leather face relaxing as she smiled. “Had some idea I might use it for shooting fish. I'm not as agile as I used to be.”

“Mama, if they... they hadn't agreed, would you have killed them?”

Nancy stared at Ruita for a second, squeezed her hand and said softly, “Yes.”

There was a long dull cough out in the lagoon, followed by a collective wail from the canoes. We spun around to see the Shanghai making for the channel under power, leaving canoes full of sick divers behind in the lagoon.