Chapter 17

As dawn broke, the mists surrounding Christ’s Despair began to dissipate. Wembly was on the Wombat’s deck early and saw that there was a pall of smoke hanging over the lagoon. As Gale joined him he said, “Uh, oh. I think Jeremy’s had some trouble.”

He reached into the wheelhouse and picked up his binoculars. Scanning the shoreline, he said, “Stop the engines!” He handed the glasses to Gale and said, “look two fingers right of the pier on the water line.”

Mr. Gale did as he was told. “Oh, my God,” he said, and lowered the binoculars. “I guess we better not go ashore.” Wembly focused the glasses again. He counted the heads of the six Policeboys, and that of Thompson. Five of the Policeboys’ heads were mounted atop their quarter-staves. The sixth seemed to be on one of the truncheons broken in half. Thompson’s head was at the end of a mangrove stick generally used for shucking coconuts.

They heard a muffled blast of a shotgun. On the pier stood one of the natives with Thompson’s 12-gauge. He fired the second barrel, but the Wombat was well out of range. It was followed by more shots from two of the plantation manager’s 30.06 hunting rifles. They were not out of range of those.

Wembly mounted the gun turret and turned it toward the pier. The chatter of the four .50 caliber machine guns was earsplitting, but the result was devastating. The shooters on the pier were virtually blown into the water by the wall of lead that engulfed them. After a couple minutes of raking the beach, Wembly stepped back down onto the deck.

“I had been waiting for an opportunity to try that thing out,” he said on an ironic note. “I don’t think we need to go any further than this into the lagoon.”

Hearing the noise, Percy came on deck to find out what was happening. He picked up the binoculars and surveyed the scene without revealing his distress.

“The Salvation is missing,” Gale said with a hopeful note in his voice. “Maybe Dr. McDuff got away.” He scanned the horizon. “The question is, which way did he go? He was pretty sick. He can’t do much by himself with a boat that size.”

“Well, we came from the west and we didn’t pass him to our knowledge,” Wembly suggested. “Although we might not have seen him in the dark.”

Percy pointed toward the sun rising in the east. “They go that way. Chase Island that way — Yani’s home.”

“He’s probably right,” Gale agreed. “Due east. He’ll sight on the sun. I think we better start looking for him.”

***  

Dawn found the Salvation’s prow lined up with the sun. Yani had a kind of built-in dead reckoning that told him which way was north. The cloud cover had obscured the stars, so the Chase Islander just followed his instincts. If they had sailed five days toward the sunset to get to Christ’s Despair, then sailing five days toward the sunrise would seem to be the thing to do. His destination was home, and with him was a prize of sorts — Big Man Duff. He would make him comfortable on the island, and then persuade him to use his magic to have God deliver tinkens and tools. If he could do it on Christ’s Despair, there was no reason to think it would not be just as easy on Chase Island.

Ooma would be proud of him. He had not brought Kilibob back home, but he had done the next best thing. He would be bringing someone who “knew” how to get Kilibob’s gifts.

McDuff began to stir as the light of day became stronger. He opened his eyes and became quickly aware of where he was. The boat’s only remaining sail was billowing and the yawl was moving at a fair clip. His fever had abated somewhat and he lifted himself up on one elbow. “How did we get here?” he called to Yani who was holding the tiller on a straight course.

The young man smiled broadly and answered, “You much sick. Thompson make strong simka. Try kill you. Yani’s magic stronger. Pastor McDuff sleep ... I carry him on boat. Him sleep all night.”

“What happened to Thompson? Did he get away?”

A serious expression crossed Yani’s face. “Big House — big fire. I think Big Man Tomsin he cook.”

The minister chose not to pursue the matter further. His imagination was sufficient. He leaned back, and shielded his eyes from the sun. “Where are we going? Do you know where we are?”

“We go my island. Witman call Chase Island. We stay there. Yani tell Ooma you my Big Man churchfella. You friend Blackfella.”

Well, McDuff thought, it sounds more congenial than Christ’s Despair. Any change would have to be an improvement. If the people are all like Yani, my chances of success sound an awful lot better.

The gourd full of water was within reach, and he took a long swallow from it. He was weak as a kitten. He propped himself up against the gunnel and took a drink of a different kind. This time it was the beauty of the scintillating blue water. Deep down he felt a wish to be free of his missionary vows, and have nothing to do but enjoy the splendor God had created in this part of the world.

His eye caught something moving swiftly through the water from the direction of the sun. “What is that, Yani? A sailfish? A shark maybe?” he asked.

Yani strained his eyes. “Him no fish,” he said. He made a motion with his hands indicating that it was moving too fast.

To McDuff’s second look, it appeared to be a strangely shaped motorboat. It was heading straight in their direction, and closing fast. Thank God, we’re saved, he thought.

As the boat drew near, all too quickly the rest of the behemoth broke the surface 100 feet in front of them. It was like no fish Yani had ever seen. It had no scales, no fins, no eyes. It was metal. It was a Japanese submarine.

Yani’s eyes almost bulged out when he saw the top of the conning tower open and three men emerge. To him this was a huge fish that had swallowed men, and they were now escaping. However, he was too astonished to do anything but look. McDuff was terrified. He guessed quickly what the encounter meant ... It meant that they were not going to reach Chase Island, and would be lucky to live through it.

Two sailors clambered down the outside ladder and ran forward to the single gun that was mounted on the sub’s narrow deck. They removed the sea plug from the barrel, and loaded a shell one was carrying into the breech. The Japanese officer gave them some brisk commands, and the weapon was pointed at the sailboat.

McDuff drew on all the strength he could muster and rose to his feet. He staggered forward to the mast and yelled, “Ahoy, on the submarine. We are Americans. We are Americans.”

The officer in the conning tower brought his right hand down sharply and shouted something unintelligible. Yani and McDuff heard an ear-shattering blast. The starboard bow of their boat disappeared in an eruption of wood and metal fragments, knocking both men to the deck.

The sailors, deck gun, and submarine were all new, making this the first time the gun had been fired at sea. The shell hit the boat, but not where it was supposed to. Water rushed in and the Salvation began to capsize. Before they had a chance to fully understand what was happening, the minister found himself and his Churchboy submersed in the exquisite aqua-colored water of the South Pacific he had been admiring only minutes before.

***

The Wombat was heading east at flank speed. At most, the Salvation had a five- or six-hour lead on them. Diesel engines would eat up the sail-powered time and distance pretty quickly if they were going in the right direction.

Percy was perched on the forward railing, scanning the horizon, which might be a little more than two miles viewed from sea level. Suddenly he heard a noise that came from a point out of sight, but definitely straight ahead. “Mr. Wembly,” he called, “You hear? Big noise.” He pointed eastward.

Wembly turned his binoculars toward the direction Percy was pointing. “I think I see something, but I can’t make it out.” The former yacht was going as fast as it could, and the distance to the apparent horizon was closing fast.

Wembly almost did a double take when the image took shape in his glasses. “I think it’s a submarine!” he called to Gale. “Most likely a Jap sub. H.Q. was right, they are operating in these waters, the bloody bastards. I think the Salvation has rolled over.”

“I’ll fire the quad-50. That’ll get their attention,” Gale said in a fit of excitement.

Before Wembly could remind him that they were not equipped to take on the Japanese Navy, the junior officer was firing volleys of six rounds in the direction of the submarine.

___

The Japanese officer in the conning tower heard the shooting, and saw the silhouette of the patrol boat. Thinking it was an Australian torpedo boat, he ordered his men back inside. They scrambled back up the ladder and into the vessel. They submerged as quickly as possible, and were out of sight in a matter of minutes.

The Wombat found Yani and McDuff clutching the hull of the yawl, which had gone belly up but still had air trapped inside. Percy jumped overboard and swam to the aid of Yani, who was trying to keep something from sinking. It turned out to be the wooden box of tinkens and the missionary’s books. He held his sunglasses in his teeth, and refused to let go until Mr. Gale reached down and took the box from his hands.

“You take magic books,” Yani called.

Yani climbed up a rope ladder dropped over the side and Percy towed McDuff away from the sinking sailboat. Between the Patrol Officer and the Policeboy, they managed to get the white man onto the deck. Nearly unconscious, both from the exhausting experience and the malaria, he was lifted onto a blanket and carried to a bunk in one of the converted staterooms.

“Did you see the number of cuts poor McDuff had around his face and ears? The natives must have tortured the hell out of him,” Gale said to Wembly. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“Neither have I. It’s not the sort of thing they do. But Christ’s Despair has always earned its name,” Wembly said. Then he turned to the two black men who were sitting on the deck talking in their own dialect. “Percy, ask him what happened back there.”

Yani was still too excited to talk anything but his native language, and related the story to Percy, who in turn told the Patrol Officers in simplified English. He let the older man explain what happened to Thompson, but Yani tried to describe what happened to McDuff on his own.

Forgetting Percy’s admonition about speaking English again. Performing many of the actions, he said, “Jesus in Heaven come down from altar. Make Big Man Duff bloody — look like dead. Kanakas come see him. They afraid him have too much simka. They go home.

“Yani come. See pastor. Take him boat. Go back Chase Island. See big tinken fish. You come.”

“But how did he get all those cuts on his head?” Gale persisted, making lines on his own face with his fingers. “Jesus cut head. Cut ears. Yani throw Jesus away. Save Big Man Duff,” he smiled.

Percy shrugged. “Forget it for now,” Wembly said. “You speak English pretty well for a Blackfella, Yani.”

Yani gave Negeb a guilty look. He wondered if he would now get the beating he was led to believe would follow.

“How would you like to go to Australia with Percy and some other boys? We’ll give you some new clothes, shoes and teach you how to be a Policeboy.”

Wembly was doing fine with his enticements, until Yani remembered how much the natives disliked Thompson’s Policeboys. Negeb had told him how they wound up on the beach. It was not a very pleasant prospect, as far as Yani was concerned.

“This is different,” Negeb reassured him in his own tongue. “The Policeboys on the island are the first ones I ever lost. That was because they put the evil Witman in charge. I will go with you to Brisbane.”

“After you finish, we’ll send you back to Chase Island. You like that?” Wembly promised.

Negeb reinforced the words in their own language just in case Yani did not fully understand the English.

“Yani go,” he said. “You send Big Man Duff, too?”

“Big Man Duff very sick. We take him to Port Moresby until he is better. I don’t know what he will do now. There’s a war on, and he’s not British. I’m afraid he’ll be going back to America.”

Yani was disappointed. He had really hoped to take McDuff back to Ooma as a gift.