So Sue Darling sailed from Apia without any fuss or bother. Riding (she had only a handful of cargo) fairly high out of the water, with her four deck passengers housed in a sort of tent on the hatch made by stretching a spare tarpaulin over the single boom. Unless the weather turned dirty they would be comfortable enough. It would be only a three day run to MacKinnon Island.
Sally, of course, pounced on them as soon as they came on board. There were two men, whose darkness and frizziness of hair betrayed a fair infusion of Melanesian blood. They were respectably attired in white shirts and slacks. One of the women was equally dark, coarse featured, but the other was what the reading and film-going public has come to regard as a typical island beauty. She was fine featured and golden skinned — less dark, in fact, than Sally.
They were well educated, all four of them, speaking almost perfect English. They made it quite plain, as soon as they could see what Sally was driving at, that they, as Christians, refused to have any truck with pagan superstitions. Meanwhile I was amused by the scornful glances cast by the women — they were attired in dresses that were almost Mother Hubbards — at Sally’s usual rig of halter and short shorts.
So, thereafter they were left to themselves. It was obvious that they preferred it that way. They had no dealings with any of the crew but the Cook. Curley Green, I noticed, tended to hang around the women — and I noticed, too, that Curley began to lose interest when the men started to finger the knives they wore at their belts.
North and west we steered, through calm seas and under an almost cloudless sky. I was beginning to enjoy myself. I knew that we should find nothing, but if the Clarion cared to pay for an island cruise, who was I to object? And my relations with Sally were improving. She was still stand-offish, but we were now on given name terms. After I had shown her the near-wrecks in Apia harbour she was becoming ready to admit that my theories regarding the disappearances might well be true.
It was a fine, lazy afternoon when it happened.
Had it not been a Sunday, there would have been more people on deck. As it was, there were the four fisherfolk dozing on the hatch under their awning. On the bridge there was the officer of the watch — Petherick — and the man at the wheel. Then there was myself. I had found a sheltered patch of deck just forward of the saloon house and, attired in my trunks, was adding to my tan.
The Old Man was below, enjoying his afternoon sleep. So were all the off watch personnel. So was Sally. And I, in the sunlight, was as nearly asleep as made no difference.
I heard the Mate calling down to me from the bridge, “Mr. Hallows! Mr. Hallows!”
“Yes?” I replied sleepily.
“There are your devil fish,” he said, laughter in his voice.
Lazily I got to my feet, looked up. I saw that he was pointing to starboard. I went to the bulwark, looked outboard. At first I thought that it was a reef there, then realised that the broken water was caused by a great school of porpoises. Devil fish, indeed! I snorted aloud. Porpoises are better known for their friendliness towards the human race than for any other quality.
I thought of returning to my rug, but found it hard to raise the energy. I remained by the rail, watching the squadron of aquatic mammals that kept pace with us without effort. I wondered idly how they had passed the time before there were any ships for them to race. I supposed that they just raced each other.
Then something caught my eye — a tenuous column of vapour that rose above the dark, sleek hurrying bodies. A whale? But what was a whale doing among the porpoises? Again the brute spouted, and broke surface, and I caught a glimpse of the great, boxlike head. A sperm whale …
Odd, I thought. Odd.
Then there was a great commotion out to starboard. It looked almost like a fight. Over the water, louder than the thud of our diesels, came the noise of splashings and slappings. And then, I realised suddenly, that the sperm whale was heading straight for us.
I yelled to Petherick on the bridge, but he had already seen the danger. I heard him shout to the man at the wheel, “Hard-a-port! Hard-a-port, damn you!” I felt Sue Darling heel as she began to swing.
She was coming round, Sue Darling was coming round, but slowly, slowly, and the huge brute to starboard was coming in fast, all the hundred tons of it. It was coming in fast — but not, I realised with a wild hope, fast enough. If it did strike, it would strike the ship only a glancing blow, and Sue Darling’s timbers were stout enough to withstand that.
And then, on our port side, came the sudden, shocking impact. There was more than one whale. The ship heeled violently and I was flung over the low bulwarks, into the water.
After what seemed an eternity I broke surface, gasping. I still don’t know how the screw missed me although, looking back on it all, I think that the still swinging stern must have passed right over me. I broke surface, gasping — and there, only feet from me, was one of the whales, charging straight for me. I remember thinking that it was a pity that it was a sperm whale. The great jaws were open and I could see the teeth. I struck out frantically trying to get clear, knowing that I should never do so.
Had it not been for the porpoises I should not have done. I screamed when something struck my back, my side. And then they were all around me, jostling and shoving, pushing me from the path of the great beast. The wash of it swept over me and I went down, choking, but my saviours bore me to the surface again.
There was a lifebuoy just ahead of me, a canvas-covered cork ring, gleaming in its clean red and white paint. My groping hands found the rope becket of it and I clung to it, and I watched Sue Darling go. I saw her explode in a flurry of shattered timbers, saw the cloud of steam that billowed from her drowned engines. I saw the great flukes of the whales in silhouette against the sky as they dived, their work done. I saw a few struggling human figures among the leaping and plunging squadrons of the porpoises.
Then they were around me again, pushing the buoy, with myself still clinging to it, towards one of Sue Darling’s boats. With a violent jar the leading edge of the cork ring struck the side of the little craft. It was not one of the lifeboats — they must have been smashed, or dragged down by the weight of the steel davits and fittings to which they were still made fast. It was the small dinghy that had been stowed on the poop, on the lazarette hatch. But it was a boat, and it meant salvation.
Low in the water as it was, I still had trouble clambering aboard it. The porpoises helped. They got under me again and they lifted, and threw me clear of the water. Suddenly I found myself painfully asprawl over the gunwale and then, as the boat heeled, crumpled on the bottom boards. I got to my knees and then to my feet, looking for an oar so that I could scull towards the other survivors. But the boat was bare of equipment.
There was a swimmer approaching — dark gleaming head and, dimly glimpsed through the water, pale gleaming body. A slender arm reached up, a slim hand grasped the gunwale. I leaned over, grasped the other hand with both of mine, pulled. It was like landing a great golden fish — or a mermaid. Naked, wetly glistening, Sally sat on the bottom boards, glaring at me. She said, massaging one breast tenderly, “You needn’t be so rough …”
“Shut up, you silly bitch!” I snapped. “Help me to paddle this boat to the others! Get your hands over the side and paddle!”
She rose to her knees, looked at the turbulent water surrounding us. “Through this traffic jam?” she asked quietly.
All around us milled the porpoises. Even with oars, even with a motor, it would have been impossible to propel the boat through that turbulent mass of bodies. But a lane opened and down it, swimming with a slow breast stroke, came the first of the other survivors. His bald head made for easy recognition. It was Curley Green. We helped him inboard and he lay on the bottom boards, spluttering and cursing.
Then there came one of the Samoan women, the golden skinned one. She was hampered by the dress that she still wore, but the porpoises helped her. Her husband, naked but for the belt in which he still wore his sheath knife, followed. We dragged them aboard.
“Who else?” Sally was asking. “Who else?”
I stood up in the rocking boat, looking among the wreckage and the dark, weaving bodies of the sea beasts, looking for Captain West and Petherick, for the other officers and crew members. But there were only the second fisherman and his woman, both of them clinging to a shattered timber. I called to them. “Swim to the boat!” I shouted. “Here! Swim to the boat!”
The woman was first to relinquish her hold of the timber. She started striking out towards us. The man followed. She must have been injured when the ship broke up. She was painfully slow. Helpfully, the porpoises closed in around her, urging her forward. She cried out in fear. And then we saw the man pull his knife from his belt, saw him dive. And, bellowing, one of the porpoises leapt high into the air, its guts trailing from the gash in its belly.
Sickened, we watched what followed. The man’s body was thrown clear of the surface of the bloodied water. Already his knife hand was gone, and the arterial blood was pumping from the ragged stump. He was screaming as he fell, and the porpoises closed on him like hounds, rending and tearing. It was soon over — but seemed that the sound of his screams hung on the air for a long time. And when he was gone the woman was gone with him.
Sally, her face in her hands, was sobbing quietly. Curley Green was cursing in a flat monotone. The Samoan woman was stonily silent whilst the man was muttering over and over, “The devil fish. The devil fish.”
But they had helped us, I was thinking. They had helped us after the whales had attacked us. They had turned on us only when provoked.
Carefully ignoring that patch of bloodstained water in which gruesome things still floated, I looked carefully at the floating wreckage.
I said, “There are two oars floating there. I suggest that we use our hands as paddles and go and get them.”
“If you put your muckin’ hands in the muckin’ water, after what you’ve just seen muckin’ happen, you’re a bigger bloody fool than yer look, Petey boy,” said Curley Green.
My suggestion was not taken, even by myself.