You know how it is, sometimes, during periods of stress. You sleep, and then you wake up with the feeling that all the evil things that have been happening are no more than a bad dream — and then, but slowly, comes the realisation that they are not a nightmare, that they are dreadfully real.
So it was this morning.
I awoke from a crazy dream of shipwreck and intelligent porpoises, of madmen with guns. With eyes still shut I lay on my bed, listening to the steady, reassuring rhythm of the breathing of the other person in the room. So Jane was still asleep. She would awaken when the alarm went off, and then it would be time to bestir myself to make a pot of tea. Blindly I groped for the packet of cigarettes and box of matches that I always kept on the bedside table …
And groped …
There was something wrong.
I felt an odd reluctance to open my eyes, fumbled around blindly. The need for tobacco was becoming acute. I felt as though I had been deprived of smokes for several days. What was it that Sally had said? That she found it hard to talk without a cigarette? Just as I found it hard to wake up without one …
Sally?
Who was Sally?
The silence was shattered by a bawling voice. “Rise and shine! Rise and shine, you lazy bastards!”
I ungummed my eyelids, stared wildly around the hut. The daylight did nothing to relieve its squalor, and neither did the sight of Bible Bill who was sitting up on his bed, glaring madly at the door and muttering what sounded like Biblical curses.
“Out of yer muckin’ flea bags!” Curley Green was bellowing. “Come on, out of it!”
So the dream most certainly was not a dream. So the nightmare was persisting, even though I was awake and the sun was well up. Reluctantly I slid off the mattress, rose slowly to my feet, walked unenthusiastically out of the hut. Curley Green, I saw, was standing in the doorway of his shed, dirty, splayed feet wide planted, the thumbs of both big hands hooked into the waistband of his shorts. (His right hand, however, was handy to the butt of the holstered pistol.) He scowled when he saw me. “And about muckin’ time,” he grumbled.
“Well?” I asked coldly.
“It ain’t well. Half the muckin’ day gone, an’ not a stroke o’ work in hand.”
“And there won’t be any work done,” I said firmly, “until we’ve had a chance to clean up and get some breakfast.”
“I’ve had mine,” he said.
I looked distastefully at the crumbs of beans, the smears of sauce, still clinging to the stubble around his lips. I said, “So I see.”
He grumbled — and did I detect a note almost of pleading in his voice? — “I thought that I made it clear. If yer don’t work, yer don’t eat.”
I said, “It should be obvious that if we don’t eat, we can’t work. Show a bit of sense, Curley. We’ll play along with you and your bosses …”
“Partners …” he interjected.
“All right. Partners, if it makes you feel any happier. We’ll play along with you and your partners, but you’ll have to play along with us. That gun of yours is a very handy tool, but only for one thing. Shooting people.”
“You said it, Petey!” The automatic was out of its holster now, pointing at my navel.
“Put the bloody thing away,” I told him. “You shoot me, and you’ve reduced your labour force by one. By twenty percent, which sounds rather worse and which happens to be true. But we need you as much as you need us. You’re the only one who can give the porpoises what they want, and as long as you can, they go on feeding us.” I paused. “So the gun isn’t really recessary.”
He grinned reluctantly. “You almost convince me, Petey boy — but I’m keeping it. I wouldn’t trust any o’ you bastards. Anyhow, as an’ from now you’re promoted to Bo’s’n. Get the others on deck, an’ make it snappy.”
I went to the doorway of Sally’s hut, pulled aside the sheet that she had hung as a curtain in the opening. I saw a flurry of arms and legs and breasts as she hastily wrapped her makeshift sari about herself. “All right,” she snapped. “I’m coming.” I left her to finish dressing and went to the last shack, meeting Mary and John as they emerged from the doorway. They both looked as though they had slept well and happily. I envied them.
Last into the open air was Bible Bill, silent and morose, glaring at all of us malevolently. He didn’t love any of us, and he was making it obvious.
Curley Green looked us over, sneering. He said, “Petey, here, wants to work accordin’ ter the bleedin’ award. Mealtimes, smokoes and Gawd knows what else. Well, I suppose you’d better muckin’ eat before you turn to.” He went back into the shed, returned with five cans of beans. “Here’s yer muckin’ breakfast.”
Sally ran her hand through her sleep-tousled hair. She said, “We also want time to make our toilets …”
Green guffawed. “The management regrets, Lady Clara Vere-de-Vere, that the hot water system is out of order, also that the hairdressers and manicurists are out on strike. But you are free, my lady, to make use of whatever remaining facilities this humble establishment has to offer.” He scowled and snarled, “But make it muckin’ snappy!”
So the two women went off to the stream while the old man, John and myself made an unsatisfying meal of cold beans. And then, while the girls were eating, we went off and did what had to be done. I found myself considering the digging of a proper latrine, thinking about getting these matters organised on a civilised basis. It was obvious that Bible Bill had never done so during his term of office. It was obvious that Curley Green would never do so.
But, I told myself, we shan’t be here for long …
And then, with a feeling of panic, But shan’t we?
• • •
Curley Green waited impatiently until we were ready to start the day’s work. He said, “I’m goin’ down to the beach ter talk ter that fish-faced bastard, Noah.” He jabbed a finger towards Bible Bill. “An’ you’re comin’ with me.” Then, to Sally, “And you.”
“Why?” she asked.
“Don’t be so muckin’ innocent. As a bleedin’ hostage, that’s why. Otherwise Petey an’ these two boongs might get the idea o’ rollin’ rocks down on me.” He turned to me. “An’ you, Petey, can get ahead with yer charcoal burnin’.”
“I shall need matches,” I said.
“Matches don’t grow on muckin’ trees,” he said. “You’ll have ter make do with this.” From a pocket he produced a magnifying lens, a chart magnifier. He handed it to me with his left hand, at arm’s length. In his right hand he held the pistol. He wasn’t trusting anybody.
Then, backing away from me, he went back into the shed, returned outside with the padlock, transferring it from the inside to the outside of the door. His contortions as he tried to lock up whilst still keeping us covered were comical, but he managed it. He pocketed the key.
And then, with Bible Bill and Sally, he made his way to the beach.
As soon as they were out of sight John went to the shed door, tried it. He looked at me enquiringly. I shook my head. It would be easy enough to use a rock to hammer the padlock off, but the operation would be far from noiseless. If there had been other firearms inside the shed it would have been worth trying, but to do it in these circumstances would have been pointless.
“No,” I said reluctantly. “No. We’d better get ahead with the charcoal burning.”
“How do you make charcoal?” asked the Samoan.
“I had hoped that you might know,” I said.
“I do not,” he answered.
Of course, I thought, it had been foolish of me to assume that a primitive man would be well versed in every primitive art. It had been foolish of me to assume, in any case, that John was a primitive man. When the first white men blundered into the Pacific the Polynesians already possessed a rich, Stone Age culture, and civilisation is possible in a society entirely innocent and ignorant of machines. Furthermore, in Europe charcoal burning was tied up with the early smelting and forging of metals, and Stone Age people, primitive or otherwise, would have no need of charcoal.
I tried to remember what I had read on the subject — and it was little. About all I could recall were the childhood fairy stories in which the hero was a poor charcoal burner who finished up marrying the local Princess. All very romantic, but somewhat lacking in technical detail.
The answer, I decided, lay in incomplete combustion, enough heat to drive out the moisture from the wood, to consume the volatile hydro-carbons, but not enough to burn the basic carbon. I thought I saw how it could be done.
“Go into the bush,” I told the Samoans. “Bring me plenty of wood, both dry and green. And leaves.”
When they were gone, I walked cautiously to the cliff edge, looked down to the beach. Curley Green and Bible Bill and Sally were standing thigh deep in the water, and around them cruised the porpoises and before them, floating on the surface, tail down and head up, was the leader, Noah. Green was talking, but I couldn’t hear what he was saying. I saw his hands move as he gesticulated. He seemed to be drawing things in the air.
Tools, perhaps.
Or bottles …
I thought again of my tentative scheme for incapacitating the engineer, and thought, too, of the channel of communication that Bible Bill had opened to me. Both ideas seemed feasible.
But it was obvious that I should be able to learn nothing at the moment that would be to our ultimate advantage.
I returned to my charcoal burning.