The Navigator

The night came down on a scene of tribal simplicity. Molly Kaapu had marshalled the pake women about the fire-pit and was teaching them the arts of making breadfruit paste and broiling fei, the thick red plantains that cooked sweeter than bananas, and baking a groper fish in a wrapping of leaves. The two wives from Kauai were shredding palm leaves and plaiting lines for the fishermen. Tioto and Willy Kuhio were shaping shells into hooks. Simon Cohen was notching a bamboo tube into a simple flute. Hernan Castillo was trying to make an adze from a chunk of basalt and a gnarled tree-root. Adam Briggs and Charlie Kamakau were making a pair of paddles for the canoe while Franz Harsanyi, Carl Magnusson and Mark Gilman were engaged in some complicated memory game from which all others were excluded. Apart, in the shadows, Gunnar Thorkild sat with Jenny who was tearful and full of miseries.

‘I feel so lousy, Prof. I get these pains. It’s like I was all knotted up inside. Then they go away and I just feel sick. I know I’m a drag. Everybody’s kind and careful; but it’s not fair to them…’

‘It’s good for them Jenny. They need you to take their minds off their own problems. Besides, you’re important to them for another reason. You’re carrying the first new child that will be born on this island. You’re a precious thing and your baby will be a pride for everybody.’

‘I’m scared Prof. I mean how it will happen, how much it’ll hurt. There’s no medicine here, no anaesthetic, nothing!’

‘Jenny love, women were having babies long before medicine was thought of. You’ve got Sally and Molly Kaapu and Martha. They’ll give you more help than you’d get in most hospitals today.’

‘I know that. They’ve been talking to me, trying to explain things. But I’m still scared.’

‘When your time is over, you’ll have to help the others, because there’ll be more babies born here for sure.’

‘Ours Jenny. They’ll belong to all of us. The children will be the luckiest kids in the world.’

‘Well girl, I guess you belong to me and Martha. I picked you off the beach. Martha took you in.’

‘It would make both of us feel better. Lorillard’s all right, I guess. Some ways he’s good for her, but she doesn’t get much support from him.’

‘She’s not tied. There are younger and better ones. Franz Harsanyi for instance or Adam Briggs.’

‘Funny that!…Here we all are, and nobody’s tied to anyone – except you and Sally. This afternoon we all were swimming together without a stitch on; but it was like a fraternity picnic. I wonder how it’ll work out in the end?’

‘Yes, thanks. I’m sorry to be such a mess. Will you do something for me, Prof? …’

‘I’ll kiss you now, chicken – and for bedtime too. Dry your eyes and let’s join the party.’

As they walked over to the hut Hernan Castillo beckoned to Thorkild and held up the tool on which he had been working.

Thorkild walked over to one of the large palms that fringed the clearing and cut a series of notches in the trunk. The stone blade bit deep but still held firm in the shaft. The little Filipino let out a whoop of joy. Thorkild strode back to the fire-pit to display the miracle.

‘Now we know how to do the notches and the binding we can make other things – knives, hammers. Next thing we have to learn is how to flake and chip the stone to put a good edge on it. If any of you see pieces of basalt like this, pick ’em up and dump them outside the hut…If anybody wants to learn how to do it, I’ll show ’em.’

‘Find me a can for the mash,’ said Adam Briggs. ‘and I’ll make you the best moonshine you’ve ever tasted.’

‘And I’ll test it first.’ Sally Anderton gave a smiling caution. ‘To make sure you don’t go blind or rot your livers.’

When they sprawled around the fire-pit to eat supper, they were all elated, full of plans and prospects, great and small: to weave fish-traps and fruit baskets, to find the bark that would make tapa cloth, to make an outrigger and a sail for the canoe, a kneading trough for the women, a press for the oil of the coconut. It was good talk, eager and boisterous and full of hopes.

When the meal was done, they tossed the scraps into the pit, built up the fire and, led by Simon Cohen, began to sing, raggedly at first, and then in more tranquil harmony. It was an hour of strange, sad beauty with the moon-path on the empty sea, the cadence of the voices rising and falling against the boom of the distant surf and the shoheen-ho of the wind in the palms. They drew close to each other, holding body to body, swaying to old rhythms, sharing wordless memories and untellable fears. Led by Ellen Ching, the Kauai girls and Molly Kaapu danced, while the men chanted the old melodies, hackneyed once for the tourists, but now filled with a new beauty, the nostalgia of a vanished paradise. When they had sung themselves out, Molly Kaapu gave them her own bawdy goodnight.

‘See that house there?…That’s where we sleep. It’s boys on one side, girls on the other; because us ladies like to be private sometimes. Those that have other things in mind can dig a nice warm hole on the beach…But watch out for land crabs which can give you a nasty nip in the wrong places. And when you come home, don’t wake the rest of us. Goodnight all …’

As they dispersed slowly into the darkness, Gunnar Thorkild sat alone, staring into the glowing embers of the fire-pit. Jenny had had her goodnight kiss. Sally had gone to settle Carl Magnusson. The others would dispose themselves in their own fashion in their own times and seasons. For himself there was the problem, which tomorrow would become immediate, of Peter Andre Lorillard and his gadgets. The radio did not trouble him. There was no hope of raising the generators; and without a power supply the radio would not function. The signal buoys were another matter. If they could be raised and if they were still serviceable, then clearly there was a means, however chancy, of communication with the outside world. Equally clearly, he had no right to refuse that chance to a single one of his castaways. And yet, caught in the magical afterglow of the evening, he found the idea repugnant, as if he were inviting the armed invasion of a sanctuary. Remembering the eager talk, the sudden surge of creative impulse in the whole group, he wondered whether it would have taken place had they still had hopes of a mechanical intervention by a bleating object drifting in a wilderness of sea. Besides, even if he left the damned things to be eaten by the coral, he was not denying hope, only deferring it to a time when they could build their own vessel and send it voyaging with a trained crew…He was still wrestling with the thought when Martha Gilman’s voice startled him out of his reverie:

‘No. I’ve just settled Mark to sleep. Peter’s waiting for me down on the beach. I wanted to say something.’

‘Let me say it.’ Thorkild’s tone was gentle. ‘We’ve been friends too long to go on fighting. If I hurt you, I’m sorry. Can we pick it up from there?’

‘Of course. And I’m sorry too. But there’s something else. Peter’s told me about his wife and family in San Diego.’

‘Thanks for letting him tell me; but Gunnar, I have to know this because it changes everything. What are our chances of getting off the island?’

‘Now? In the immediate future? Almost nil. Later, when we’re settled and can design and build a boat – maybe.’

‘You see what I mean, don’t you? If we’re stuck here, well, Peter and I can make a new life. If we’re not and I have a baby and …’

‘I don’t know yet. I’ve never seen him tested. But if you believe him, go ahead. You can’t keep juggling oranges all your life. You have to let ’em drop some time.’

‘Thanks old friend.’ She took his face in her hands and kissed him on the lips. ‘I’m sorry I used you for a fetish doll. Sally Anderton’s a lucky girl. I hope she knows it. Goodnight Chief.’

As she hurried away towards the beach he asked himself, with bleak irony, what Peter Lorillard would say when he raised the question of the signal buoys.

Somewhere in the small hours of the morning, Thorkild was awakened by the sound of scuffling and women’s voices, behind the partition. A moment later, Sally was beside him, strained and urgent:

‘Jenny’s going to abort. The water’s broken, the labour will begin very soon. Stoke up the fire. Get us some kind of light. Get me some water.’

‘Oh Christ! Spring water then…And give me a sterile knife to cut the cord. But we need light…’

‘Bring her outside. We’ve still got the moon and the fire.’ ‘We can’t!’

‘She’ll be warmer and you can see what you’re doing. I’ll call you when I’m ready.’

He hurried outside cursing the new madness. He piled brambles on the dying fire, snatched up the axe and went charging through the jungle fringe to the fei trees. He hacked down a whole plant, dragged it back to the fire-pit and spread the broad green leaves like a coverlet on the sand. He went down to the beach and began gathering armfuls of sea-weed and driftwood and the husks of coconuts to pile on the fire. He went to the spring and filled half a dozen coconut cups with fresh water. Then he went back inside the hut, where Jenny was already groaning with the first spasms. He waited until the spasms had passed then carried her out, with the women trailing after him. He laid her down on the leaf mat beside the fire. Molly Kaapu squatted at her head, making a pillow of her lap. Martha Gilman and Charlie Kamakau’s wife knelt on either side, gripping her hands. Sally Anderton knelt between her spread legs. Ellen Ching and Yoko braced her feet.

When the spasms began again, Jenny screamed, and the men came tumbling bleary-eyed out of the hut. Thorkild shouted at them to get inside and stay there. He whittled and cleaned a piece of wood and held it to Jenny’s mouth so that she could bite on it as she wrestled and thrust, to the urgings of the women. The labour was long and difficult, and when birth came it was a tiny boy child, dead before its entry into life. Sally Anderton was bloody to the elbows, sweating and exhausted, but she completed the operation, silenced the weeping women, and told them brusquely:

‘Take her inside. Wrap her in your clothes. Lie with her and keep her warm. And for Christ’s sake stop blubbering. It doesn’t help her one bit!’

When they had gone she herself wept with savage anger, beating her fists into the sand. Thorkild laid a hand on her shoulder and tried to comfort her. She rejected him fiercely:

Gunnar Thorkild wrapped the tiny, bloody corpse in the fei leaves and walked down to the beach. Before he was half-way there, Adam Briggs fell into step beside him. He helped to dig the grave and pile the stones. He sat with Thorkild while he wept, bitterly, silently, until no more tears were left. Then he helped him to his feet and said calmly:

‘Enough’s enough man! You can’t carry us all – not all the time! Let’s go home and catch some sleep.’

He could not sleep. He cleaned up the mess by the fire-pit. He prowled about in the false dawn, gathering fuel and fruit. He pushed out the canoe and fished for an hour, so that when the camp was roused he could offer them food and bustle them about the day’s tasks before they felt the full impact of the omens. He could lend them no pity. He could not afford to let them pity themselves. He told them:

‘… Last night was a sad thing, but it’s done, finished. Jenny is alive and will bear other children. We have to go on with the business of living and help her to do the same…The tide’s low this morning. I want to mount a full-scale salvage operation on the Frigate Bird before she breaks up altogether. Peter Lorillard will be in charge. Pick the men you want, Peter, but make sure they can all swim and dive, because you’re going to have to submerge inside the hull and grope about for whatever you can find. Do you think your signal buoys would still be serviceable?’

‘Make those a priority. See if they can be got out without risking anyone’s neck. Where were they stored?’

‘In a box in the hold. We may not be able to get down that far. Besides, they’re quite bulky.’

‘Forget it then. Next priority, metal containers. Last night we didn’t even have a vessel to boil water. After that tools and metal …’ He managed a pale joke, ‘And if you can lay your hands on any of Carl’s liquor, bring that too!…For the rest, strip the ship. But if the sea gets up and she starts to move, quit. It’s my guess she’ll be sucked back into the big deep. Understood?’

‘I want you to start making as many tools as you can – adzes, simple cultivators, anything you can devise for clearing and building and planting up on the terrace…Molly, Eva, we need baskets, and mats for sleeping and for the walls of the hut. We need fibre for binding. Some of you know how to make these things. Teach the others and get all the women working…Except Ellen Ching. I want her with me today. I want you too, Tioto. Bring a knife. We’re going to start exploring the island. We’ll be back before sunset…Any questions?’

‘Just one Chief.’ It was Franz Harsanyi who spoke. ‘Shouldn’t we try to salvage books and charts and papers as well? I know they’ll be water-spoiled, and some will be useless, but we’ve got to find some way of preserving the knowledge we hold between us. We can’t let it die. I want to say more about this later, but while we’re working on the ship …’

‘Agreed, Franz. So long as it’s understood that the means of survival come first. We’ll talk later, as you suggest. Anyone else?’

‘The medicine chest,’ said Sally Anderton. ‘It’s in Carl’s stateroom in a cupboard under his bunk. It’s a large squarish metal box. I’d like that given high priority.’

‘I’ll see to it,’ said Peter Lorillard. ‘It’s a sight more important than the signal buoys, which may not work anyway.’

‘You’re in charge, Peter. Make your own assessment when you get on board. Sort yourselves out quickly. Time and the sea are against us. Ellen and Tioto, be ready to leave in ten minutes. I want to see you first, Sally.’

‘I felt so horribly futile and helpless. I wish you’d take me with you today.’

‘I can’t. I need Ellen because she’s a botanist. I want Tioto because he’s a gossip and a scandal-monger. If there are social problems brewing – and I think there may be – I’ll hear about them. When you’re working with the women I want you to keep your ears open too.’

‘My God! You’re a real politician. I’ve never seen this side of you before. I’m not sure I like it.’

‘Don’t judge me!’ He was harsh and strained. ‘I’ve buried three dead in forty-eight hours, and there are eighteen living souls depending on me still. I’ve put Lorillard in charge of salvage so that he’ll have to make a decision that I don’t want to make; because if it’s the wrong one it will damage my authority and the people who depend on its exercise. If that makes me a politician – so be it! Here or in Honolulu, man’s still a political animal; and until he’s learnt to govern himself, faith, hope and charity aren’t enough. I don’t ask you to approve what I do, only to understand it. I can’t fight on two fronts, Sally.’

‘Of course. She’s been asking for you. Do me a favour, Gunnar. Meet me by the waterfall before you go.’

Lying on the floor of the hut, wrapped in the clothes of the other women, Jenny, the dumpling child, looked like a rag doll, discarded after play-time. Her face, framed in lank hair, was pinched. There were dark hollows under her eyes. When she saw him she gave him a tearful smile and held out a limp, clammy hand.

‘Hi, Jenny!’ He squatted on the ground beside her and smoothed back the hair from her forehead. ‘How do you feel?’

‘Your grandfather promised that, didn’t he? He said there was more than one fruit on the tree.’

‘I’m glad this one’s dead. Billy Spaulding’s baby wouldn’t really fit with us, would it?’

‘Well, the old people used to say whatever happens is good, otherwise the gods wouldn’t allow it. You rest now. I’ll be back to see you later. Is there anything you want?’

He bent and kissed her and she held him for a moment and then lay back with a little sigh of contentment.

‘I’m so glad you’re here. I remember you carrying me out last night, and how you held me, just like my father when I was tiny. I’ll be better soon, won’t I?’

He drew the ragged covers about her and walked out to meet Sally Anderton by the waterfall. As they kissed and clung together, she begged him:

‘You’re my man, but you’re their lifeline. Their hold is stronger than mine.’

‘Sally, look at me! Don’t be scared. Love’s the one thing that grows as you spend it.’

‘But life isn’t! Time isn’t! If you don’t use it right, you turn round one day and look back at a wasteland.’

‘Nothing. That’s the terrible thing. I see you standing there with the group, and you’re taller and stronger than any of them and I’m proud of you and I wouldn’t want you to be anything else. But I’m scared too, because I know you can never be wholly mine. I know it’s selfish and stupid – and I’m old enough to know better, but that’s the way I feel and I can’t help myself. Don’t blame me, please!’

‘I don’t blame you,’ said Gunnar Thorkild sombrely. ‘But I can’t escape what I am either: what the ancestors made me, what these people have chosen me to be and do. You’re the first woman I’ve truly loved. You’re the haven I turn to out of every storm…But if that isn’t enough – God help us both!’

The purpose of the journey, as he explained it to Ellen Ching and Tioto, was two-fold: to examine with an expert eye the animal and vegetable resources of the island, and to find, if possible, the high place of which Kaloni the Navigator had spoken. He had already established the fact of a previous habitation of the island and there was probably an animal population, pigs or dogs descended from their original imports. These could be dangerous if met unawares so they armed themselves with bamboo staves sharpened at one end. They would go first to the terrace where, with Mark Gilman, he had found the pottery shard. From there they would climb to the level of the crater rim, and begin to circle it, marking a route for others to follow at a later time. They would time their journey by the sun, turning about just after midday to avoid being overtaken by darkness in the upland rain-forest.

His companions were a useful pair. For all his sexual oddity, Tioto was intelligent, resourceful and witty. He had been a sailor, a hairdresser, a night-club singer, a barman and a gymnast. He was strong as an ox, and a colourful talker in the old language and in English. Ellen Ching was an agreeable blend of Chinese pragmatism and island humour. Her mind worked like an abacus, clickety-click, and the mathematics of her own life had always been meticulously ordered. As they began their march towards the uplands, she talked freely and openly about the future:

‘… I don’t know how far you’ve thought ahead, Chief, but once you open up land for cultivation, you’ll have a whole set of new structures.’

‘Let’s start from the beginning. The soil’s decomposed lava. It’ll grow most things we want; but the growth here is so rapid, it’s a full-time job to cultivate and harvest and hold back the jungle.’

‘So you’re going to need a settled agricultural community. At the same time you need fish for protein, and people to build your boat…That’s a shore-line group, pursuing different arts, making another kind of adaptation – even climatically. Feel how different it is up here – sticky, humid; the higher we climb, the more we’re dominated by that big cloud.’

‘In the beginning it won’t be. We’ll all be sharing the same labour. Later, as skills and aptitudes define themselves, the divisions and differences will become clearer. You’ll have to work harder to hold people together.’

‘She’s right, Chief.’ Tioto chuckled. ‘You got bananas. I got fish. How many bananas for one fish, eh? You know how long it takes to make a piece of bark cloth? Remember how much it cost in the tourist market? You’re not going to give it away are you? Then you got a man making tools. How much for an axe? Not now, but later, everyone will want to trade. It’s in the blood …’

‘Then we’ve got to get it out of the blood Tioto, because it’ll destroy us, like a disease. Remember the agreement we made: everything is held in common?’

‘Easy to say Chief. Hard to do. Unless you make like the old chiefs and bury people alive or beat them with stingray barbs…And what about the man-woman thing? Do we have that in common too?’

‘Sure I care!’ Tioto was nettled. ‘Charlie Kamakau’s my friend. What happens when Charlie’s wife makes bedroom eyes at one of the haole boys, and they go off into the bushes together? I’ve seen Charlie break a man’s head with a marlin-spike just because he came drunk on board and talked dirty…And what happens if I get horny one night and chase Miss Ching up the beach?’

‘If you kick everybody’s balls off sweetheart, you’ll have a long, lonely life.’

‘Then let’s run a sporting house together, Tioto. You greet the customers – I’ll take the cash.’

‘Lay off, you two!’ Thorkild laughed ‘Let’s take a breather. This is the terrace where I came the other day. Give us a rundown on what you’ve seen so far, Ellen.’

‘Well, plantains, bananas, coconuts, bread fruit, taro. We know about those. There’s mango and guava. That bush over there is a pepper-plant. You make kava out of the roots – provided your teeth are strong enough to chew them in the first place. We’ve seen husk-shell tomatoes, and sugar cane and wild pineapples. That big tree is a paper-mulberry. You strip off the inner bark to make tapa cloth…The fruit rats that eat the bananas are clean animals. We can eat those too if we’re pushed to it…There’s everything we can ever want, even if we just forage for it. If we cultivate, then we’re so much better off.’

In the thicket to the left they heard snuffling and grunting, and a moment later, a big black sow with a piglet at her heels, trotted across the small clearing. Tioto raised his stave to strike at the piglet but Thorkild stayed his arm.

‘Don’t! If there’s a boar back there, he’ll tear the shanks off you. Enough that we know there’s meat to be had.’

‘You’re right Chief.’ Tioto relaxed and watched the animals disappear into the undergrowth. ‘How come you think quicker than me? Is that what they teach you at University?’

‘Oh yeah! I forgot.’ He shivered involuntarily and looked uneasily about him. ‘Can we move on now? I don’t like this place.’

It was the second time Thorkild had heard the same thought. This time he was not prepared to dismiss it with a platitude. He asked quietly:

‘I don’t feel anything,’ said Ellen Ching in her downright fashion. ‘I see it’s a fertile place. It would be good for us to work!’

‘You’re a high chief and a navigator. You have the mana. Maybe it doesn’t touch you; but I wouldn’t live here for a sackful of dollars.’

The ascent was steeper now, the terraces narrower, the sunlight less and less intense, until finally, when they reached the rim of the crater, they were groping through long, ragged curtains of mist. As they paused to recover their breath and wait for a break in the mist, Ellen Ching pressed home her point.

‘You see what I mean, Chief. The working altitude is obviously critical. The old terraces stop about two hundred feet short of the cloudline. That place where we saw the pig was obviously the principal tribal area. It also had the greatest variety of edible plants …’

‘Maybe that’s what I felt.’ Tioto was still broody and uneasy. ‘Too many people, too much fighting. At home they make all sorts of pretty stories for the tourists; but our ancestors were rough and bloody warriors. They ate each other. They made human sacrifice. They used sorcery and torture.’

‘The mist’s clearing,’ said Ellen Ching abruptly. ‘Let’s push on while we have the chance.’

The bowl of the crater was still invisible, covered with a deep lake of cloud, but the rim was clear, a razor-back of black lava where nothing grew but coarse tussocks. For the first time, however there was a clearly defined path – a narrow, moss-grown track winding round the inner lip. Thorkild took the lead, and they made easy progress for about half a mile, and then the track ended abruptly, in front of a high wall of lava. The wall was pierced by a tunnel, high as two men, at the end of which light was visible. The air that funnelled through it was fresh, with the taste of salt in it.

‘I know it is,’ said Gunnar Thorkild. ‘From here, I go alone. Wait for me.’

He hesitated a moment, touched by an ancient dread, then he took a deep breath, drew himself erect and strode into the tunnel. It was empty for its whole length. The floor was rough with loose stones and sharp outcrops. It was no more than a hundred paces long; but the distance seemed interminable. Ten paces from the opening he stopped, gathering himself against the terror that might confront him in the place which was the end of all journeys. Then he stepped forward into the light.

He was greeted by the screams of a thousand sea-birds that rose in clouds from the hollows in the rocks. Before him lay a boundless ocean, dazzling in the sunlight. He closed his eyes against the glare and the vertigo, and when he opened them again he saw that he stood on a broad platform that ran, on either hand, along the outer rim of the crater. Around the platform, against the wall, were set small blocks of stones. On each block was the skeleton of a man, the bones tumbled into disarray as the flesh and the ligaments that held them, had dissolved or been eaten by the sea-birds. Beside each skeleton was a wooden paddle, carved, some simply, some more ornately, with the symbol of the god, Kanaloa.

Slowly, painfully, like a man in a fever-dream, Thorkild passed along the row of skeletons, not daring to cast his eyes ahead lest his courage desert him and he flee from the final encounter with his grandfather. The journey seemed to take a life-time. One stone, one pile of bones, one paddle; pause a moment to give reverence to the nameless spirit; pass and look again; wait for the stink of corruption to strike the nostrils, and pray for courage enough to look at the face of a loved one in the horror of dissolution. The panic grew and grew until it seemed to choke him; but still he moved on, pace by slow pace, to the moment of revelation. When it came, he was stunned by the serenity of it.

Kaloni the Navigator, sat cross-legged upon his stone, his face upturned to the sun, eyes closed as if in sleep, the paddle held across his knees. There was no mark on him, no scar of discoloration. When Thorkild reached out a trembling hand to touch him, the flesh was still warm and pliant as if the last pulse-beat had gone only a moment before. Then, it was as if his own heart burst inside him. He turned his face to the sea and threw out his arms and in the tongue of the high ones, shouted his grief to the sun:

‘Ai-ee!

Kaloni the Navigator is dead.

Kaloni from whose seed I sprang

Is dead!

I am alone.

I am blind.

I cannot read the sea.

‘I cannot see the stars.

O Kaloni,

Speak for me to the high ones.

Send me their answer on the wind.

Ai-ee! Ai-ee!

Roll back the dark, Kaloni.

Make me see …!’

‘Oh my God!’ It was a whisper of awe from the girl. ‘It was all true, then?’

‘It was all true. But there’s nothing to fear. It’s peaceful now…peaceful and terribly lonely.’

‘No one can help.’ Tioto was grave and strangely tender. ‘I know…when Malo died, the stars went out for me. Was it like that for you, Chief?’

‘Very like, Tioto. I never knew my father or my mother. Kaloni Kienga was all the family I had. Whatever’s best in me came from him.’

‘Don’t be too sure!’ Ellen Ching was suddenly angry. ‘We may not understand it; but we feel it, whatever it is. Not all of us maybe; not always in the same way; but it’s there. It’s like this cloud, it changes every moment, but it’s always here. There’s something of the same thing in the Bible too. We learned about it at school: the Israelites in the desert followed a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night.’

‘I am.’ Tioto was blunt. ‘If I hadn’t come, Malo would still be alive. But I don’t blame you. Don’t think that. It’s just the stinking way things turn out. Like that poor kid last night. Rough, very rough.’

‘I’m a fatalist,’ said Ellen Ching. ‘The fortune-teller casts the wands. You can’t change the way they fall. Can I say something to you, Chief?’

‘Don’t worry too much about what we think or say. Don’t bend too easily. No one will thank you for it.’

‘No. But once we’re settled, with full bellies and a rhythm of life, we’ll start to think for ourselves again. The things that Tioto says are in the blood, will come out. You’ll have to be very strong then.’

‘This woman’s got brains.’ Tioto said a grudging tribute. ‘You listen to her, Chief. That’s good Chinese talk. Money in the bank, land under the feet and the old ones holding the family together. That’s the rough part…how you hold us together.’

They propped themselves against a tall tree, which Tioto remarked was the kind from which their boat should be made. Ellen Ching took the knife and began to loosen the earth round the roots of a big pepper plant. Tioto plucked a few hard husk-tomatoes, tiny red globules, handed some to Thorkild, squatted down beside him and began to talk quietly in the old language:

‘Chief, this business of the women…you got to do something about it. Eva Kuhio, she’s a fine smart girl. She and Willy make out fine. But Charlie’s wife – Ay-Ay! – She’s hot for every man but Charlie. That one over there …’ He jerked a thumb towards Ellen Ching. ‘She’s a steady one too – Hakka blood, all head and not much fire down below – but steady. Your little Japanese, now, she’s a trouble-maker. Oh, I know she’s sweet as sugar cane, and pretty as a china doll; but – Oh man! – you cross her and she’ll put poison in the poi bowl. I know I’m right, Chief. I’m closer to women than you’ll ever be. So you better start thinking, before Charlie Kamakau runs mad with the fire-axe.’

‘Go back to the old way. The married woman is kapu to every man but her husband. The unmarried play what games they like; but the high chief has to approve any marriage or permanent arrangement.’

‘It sounds easy, Tioto; but I’m not sure it would work. These people come from a different society.’

‘But they’re back in an old one; and they’re going to stay in it! Listen Chief, I don’t care that much…except for Charlie. I could make him happier than his wife does. But if he breaks out…then I tell you there’s more grief than you can guess.’

‘All right. But don’t mention it to anyone else. If it’s bad kapu for them, let them find out for themselves…Now you can do something for me, Tioto.’

‘I’ll spell it. You lose someone you love. You see all the others playing ring-a-roses. That’s bitter and hard to swallow…It makes a man sour sometimes and cruel…So! Don’t you be the one to put poison in the poi bowl.’

‘So I bitch a little. What’s the harm? Still, you got a deal…You never treated me like a funny man. I appreciate that.’

‘Kava isn’t happy juice – far from it. It’s yellow and it tastes vile and after about twenty minutes you feel sad and drowsy. That’s why they used it for big occasions, like meetings of chiefs and divinations of the future. It makes you solemn and important. Try it if you like; but leave me out of it. I feel solemn enough for ten drunks. Come on, let’s move! There’s a two-hour walk ahead of us.’

The campsite was like a junk-yard, piled with blankets, water-logged books, oil-cans, cordage, cutlery, tools, bottles of liquor, metal fittings, wooden panels, cabinet drawers, rigging wire, broken spars, scraps of sail track, pots, pans, odd shoes, articles of clothing, cans of food – a miscellany of booty, which was being sorted and stacked under the vigilant eye of Carl Magnusson, while Willy Kuhio and Charlie Kamakau and Adam Briggs worked on a rough shelter to house it all. Peter Lorillard was glowing with satisfaction as he made his report:

‘They worked like dogs. We must have made a dozen runs, back and forth before the tide came up. We salvaged the compass and most of the charts. We got Sally’s medicine chest. There’s a lot more stuff on board; but I doubt we’ll get much of it. She’s moving a lot; seems to be slipping seawards. The next big sea will finish her, I think.’

‘No way. We couldn’t even get into the hold. I went down first and Willy Kuhio went down after me, but it was too dark to identify anything, and we couldn’t stay submerged long enough to work. It’s damn dangerous out there.’

He hurried over to the hut and a few moments later came back carrying the box which contained Thorkild’s personal treasure, the adzehead of Kaloni the Navigator. Thorkild was deeply moved. He asked shakily:

‘It was there. I brought it. Simple…How did you make out on the mountain?’

‘Fine. There’s good ground up there and everything we need for cultivation. There’s pig too. We’ll need two settlements though. So we’ll extend ourselves here before we open up the high ground.’

‘Bad enough. There are thousands of sea-birds nesting in the ledges round the crater. That means eggs, if we want to climb for them.’

‘It’s another plus in the ledger. I felt good today, Thorkild. Better than I’ve felt in a long spell. By the way, you’ve got to believe we tried for those signal buoys.’

Franz Harsanyi called to him. He was sitting amidst a pile of books and charts, with Mark Gilman beside him, separating the pages, trying to dry them in the late sun. He held out a black volume.

‘Here’s your log, Chief…and I found a few pencils in the wheelhouse. Don’t handle the book until we dry it.’

‘It’s important Chief – for young Mark here and those who come after us. We’ve got to record things, hold them in memory. We can’t let two thousand years of learning blow away, just because we’ve got shelter and full bellies. You agree with that, don’t you?’

‘I’ll look after the books if you like – with Mark here. He and I have been trying some experiments.’

‘She’s down at the waterfall with Molly. They’re washing blankets or something. Want me to fetch her?’

As he walked towards the hut, he passed Hernan Castillo, squatting on the ground with a pile of stones on one side of him and a mess of wood-chips on the other. He held up the results of his labour, a single basalt wedge, with a serrated blade about four inches wide.

‘I’ve got the knack now, Chief. There’s a day’s work in that, but I can work faster now. That’s a damn good blade, even though I do say it myself. The hafts are easy. See?…when the others go out to cut wood, they should look for shapes like this and bring them to me.’

He opened the box, peeled off the sodden wrappers from the stone and handed it to Castillo. He held it in his hands with a kind of reverence, turning it over and over to examine every detail. Then he looked up.

‘Want to know something Chief? I never felt so lonely in my life as I did sitting here all day, chipping at stones while the others were working and laughing together. This tells me what it means…Funny…It’s like seeing you and myself for the first time. You’re a big man, Professor. I’m proud to know you.’

‘Don’t rate me too high. Otherwise you’ll want to pull me down, one day…Could you make spearheads too? There’s game up there on the mountain.’

‘I don’t know. I could try. But let me work this thing out first. I’ve got a one-track mind. That’s why I was never a good student.’

Thorkild gave him an offhand salute and walked into the hut to see Jenny. She was dozing; but she woke at his footfall and sat up to greet him. She felt better. She had eaten a little. She had walked a few steps. She would like to try again. Would he take her outside? He helped her to her feet, supported her to the door, and called to the others to witness her triumph. They gathered around her, excited and solicitous. Then Adam Briggs pushed his way to the front and took possession of her.

He swept her up into his arms and carried her away to the applause of the little group. Peter Lorillard added a laughing postscript:

‘He damn near drowned himself on board, trying to find her dresses and a brush and comb!’

‘Love, it’s wonderful!’ Barbara Kamakau was deliberately provocative. ‘All my Charlie thought of was tools and oil-cans!’

‘And liquor.’ Carl Magnusson cut in swiftly. ‘We’ll crack a bottle tonight, just to celebrate…That is if the Chief approves!’

‘I approve.’ Thorkild played out the comedy of diversion. ‘Unless you’d like kava instead. Ellen brought back the makings.’ He held up the roots with the earth still clinging to them. ‘You chew these up and spit the juice into a bowl and brew it up afterwards.’

‘Thanks,’ said Sally Anderton. ‘But I’ll have bourbon…And I need you, Barbara, to help lay out the washing. Those blankets weigh a ton.’

‘That Barbara! Always pinching and pricking. Nothing is right! Nothing is enough! One day I’m going to beat the hell out of her.’

‘Take it easy, Charlie!’ Thorkild drew him away from the group. ‘It’s been a long day for everyone. I’m going down for a swim. Join me?’

‘Damn fool! He’ll never learn! He’s forty years old. He picks up a pretty girl in a waterfront bar, marries her in a week, goes to sea with me – and expects to come home and find her darning his socks!… If I were Charlie I’d get rid of her and keep my self-respect. Mind if I walk to the beach with you, Thorkild?’

‘Better today – probably because I found something useful to do. How did you make out?’

Thorkild recounted his day. Magnusson was strangely moved by the story of the last resting-place of Kaloni Kienga and the Navigators. He said broodingly:

‘I remember having a long argument with your priest friend, Flanagan, about the nature of faith. He made the point that I’m only now beginning to understand: that religious faith provides man with what he called the arithmetic of the cosmos…a means to harmonize himself with the mysterious universe in which he finds himself. He went further and said that, without that arithmetic, we were idiots living in a bedlam. I couldn’t see it then. I see it now. I never knew a man so complete and harmonious as your grandfather. That’s why his end seems so – so proper…Our group, now, is quite different. So far, you’re doing the right thing, holding them together with a single, simple ethic – work together to survive. But that won’t carry you far enough. Even now, it’s clear that we’ve got more than we need; and more time than we can cope with. So, tomorrow and the days after, the rhythm is going to slow down, partly because of the climate, and according to Sally Anderton, partly because of the monotony of our activities. You’ll slow down too, Gunnar. Inevitably your grip will loosen, as mine has. What then …?’

‘If I think that way,’ said Gunnar Thorkild, ‘I’ll never do anything. I’ve got to work from day to day, proposing limited goals; the salvage, the upland farm, the building of our vessel. Right now, it’s the social situation that bothers me. Charlie Kamakau and his Barbara are just the first symptoms’

‘I know. Molly Kaapu and I talked about it today. We listened too – mostly to the women. They talk about things much more freely than men.’

‘Well, let’s start from the beginning…They’ve all got preferences among the men.’ He laughed. ‘They’ve got us all weighed off, Thorkild – even you – as providers and protectors and sexual partners; and their preferences aren’t confined to one man. They know they themselves are vulnerable. There’s no pill, no condoms; so any one of them can fall pregnant. Which is why most of them are being careful right now. They’re still not convinced that we’re going to spend a lifetime here – and they don’t relish the idea of going home one day with a parcel of kids that once belonged to a tribe and then belong to nobody. There’s no law here that protects them: no marriage, no divorce, no property right, no framework that will continue if they ever leave here. Sure, when they come to heat, they’ll mate and to hell with the consequences. They’ll bury their fears and live from day to day; but the uncertainty will always be there…At first sight the married ones like Barbara Kamakau and Eva Kuhio are better off; in another sense, they’re worse, because they’re bound, while the others are free…Am I making sense?’

‘Well, go back to the argument you and I had before we set out: annexation of this territory to a sovereign state, the United States of America. Now, at first sight that’s a meaningless formality. However, if we agreed it, we’d set ourselves under a code of laws to which we’re all accustomed – with enough flexible variations to enable us to administer a kind of frontier justice, and make it stick if we ever returned home – which I’m sure I won’t. We could solemnize marriages, register land rights, agree divorces, permit co-habitation but protect the rights of the women and their issue…I may be wrong, but I think we’d do a great deal that way to stabilize relationships. As it is, murder could be done here, and no sanctions could be applied against the murderer once he or she was off the island.’

‘Who’s talking about murder?’ Charlie Kamakau flopped down on the sand beside them. ‘I feel like breaking a few heads, myself.’

‘That woman of mine!’ said Charlie Kamakau. ‘I just walked over to the waterfall, and there she was, washing herself, mother-naked, with Yoko and Simon Cohen and Franz. I told her I didn’t think it was right for a married woman. She just laughed at me. I hauled her out and slapped her and sent her back to the camp.’

‘There’s no harm in it Charlie.’ Thorkild tried to placate him. ‘She’s young and high-spirited. Besides, everyone’s bathing naked now.’

‘She was a whore when I married her.’ Charlie was bitter. ‘She’s still a whore.’

‘Then let her go, Charlie,’ said Magnusson firmly. ‘Why tear your tripes out?’

‘Because she’s mine and I’ll make an honest woman out of her if I have to beat her black and blue – and I’ll kill any man that lays hands on her!’

‘That’s bad talk, Charlie.’ Thorkild snapped at him. ‘Bad and dangerous. I’ll have no more of it.’

‘And you’re both my people! You made me a chief. You know what that means, better than anyone.’

‘All right, I’ll try. Now, let’s go for a swim and cool down.’ He helped Magnusson to his feet. ‘You go back to camp, Carl. We’ll finish our talk later. And break out two bottles of liquor. I think we could all use a stiff drink at supper!’

That night there were torches round the fire-pit, bundles of fibre, soaked in oil and bound to bamboo stakes. The smoke drove away the insects; the light made a circle of security and domesticity, a wider frontier against the dark that encroached at nightfall on body and spirit. At the end of the meal, Thorkild made a great ritual of pouring the liquor, a single tot for everyone and one tossed into the fire for a libation of thanks to that which was the Beginning, the Foundation of all things. He made the toast:

‘I’d say the future looked pretty bright,’ said Carl Magnusson. ‘I’m only sorry mine looks shorter than yours. With the permission of the Chief here, I’d like to say a few words – and if they’re not the right ones you’ll remember that I’m a cross-grained old bastard who’s lost everything he ever owned and gained himself a family and isn’t too unhappy with the exchange…Well, Chief?’

Simon Cohen and Willy Kuhio helped him to his feet. In the glow of the torches he looked like some old warrior, hoary and battle-scarred, but full of strength and dignity. He began slowly, choosing his words with care:

‘I want to talk to you about two things: who we are and what we may become. We are a mixed group of men and women, most of us citizens of the United States of America, cast away on an unknown island, off the trade routes. We have, at our disposal, all the means of survival. We have the hope and the skill to build a vessel that will bring us back into contact with the outside world. We have the navigators who can sail it…But this hope brings its own danger for us. It can distract us from the tasks at hand. It can prevent us from perfecting those relationships – of sex, friendship and, let me say it, love, on which our tribal living will depend…As it stands now, because we are outside any jurisdiction of state or law, any one of us could repudiate whatever has happened on this island. Now, if we were all perfect, that wouldn’t matter; but we’re not perfect. We’re jealous, possessive, mismatched in one way or another to the natural harmony…I’m an old man. I’ve lived rough and fought hard. I can tell you these things honestly because none of you can think that I have any claims on you, except for kindness…So, I have a proposal to make: a proposal which I believe would supply a necessary continuity between our past, our present, and the future we hope to achieve. I propose that, as a group of citizens, we annex this territory to the United States of America, and in so doing, place ourselves under its constitution and live under the generality of its laws. If we do this, several things happen. Our children retain the citizenship which we enjoy. Our social acts, of marriage and, if need be, divorce, have a legal character. Our individual rights, under a common land tenure, can be adjudicated, if need be. Our elected leaders have an authority beyond dispute…Now, that’s the good side. The bad is that we admit that we are in need of an overriding State and a system, with all its defects, already established. We may provoke contention instead of avoiding it. We will limit our personal choices, and our capacity to conform them, by compromise, one with the other. It may be that some of you, or all of you, want a more flexible society than the one I have described – a more open marriage for instance, a sexual relationship less restrictive and more adapted to the life we have here, so that tensions can be abated more easily and jealousies avoided. I’m beyond all that; so I have chosen to raise the question which must be in your minds. I do not suggest that this question be resolved quickly by a camp-fire vote. I do say it must be settled soberly and after reflection and deep discussion in public and in private…As our old preacher used to say: “Brothers and Sisters, thank you for your patience”.’

He sat down to a prolonged applause; after which Martha Gilman spoke up, in her jerky, no-nonsense style.

‘I’d like to thank Carl Magnusson for saying things that needed to be set in the open…I don’t quarrel with his argument. I see problems in both situations; because, you can’t adopt a set of laws and then abrogate them at will…For instance, under the laws of the United States, private property is sacred, the fruits of labour belong to the individual. We agreed to a completely different system – communal ownership of labour and its fruits. I think we all see that’s right for us; so half the laws made under the Constitution are already out the window – if we had a window!…Now, the other thing, marriage, sex, what you will…I think we owe it to each other to be absolutely honest about that, too. After all, we’re working side by side, all day. We’re trotting around half-naked, we’re bathing and playing together. There are no possible secrets – and I don’t think there should be. There are two married couples. They made their contracts long before they met the rest of us. Peter’s my lover. Sally and the Chief are lovers too…But how exclusive do we want these things to be? How long can they remain exclusive in this kind of group? These things are very personal, I know. They touch intimate areas of our lives – personal feelings, private and public moralities. But this beach, this island, are our world now. We’ve got to run it the best way we can…I’m a woman. I’m the vessel that bears the child, the body that nurtures it. I want to be free to bear a child to the father of my choice. If I want more than one man, that’s my choice too – good or bad. I want to be free to accept or reject for myself. We women talked about these things between us. Whatever happens, we don’t want to be chattels or slaves to a contract that doesn’t bind everybody – because in this community it’s hard to see how it can …’

‘Are you saying,’ Charlie Kamakau was glowering and angry, ‘that Willy’s marriage or mine doesn’t mean anything; that we hand over our wives as common property?’

‘Not at all Charlie,’ said Martha Gilman calmly. ‘I’m saying that our relationships should be as exclusive or as open as each of us may decide. I don’t want to be invaded and you don’t want to be a stud stallion for any woman who demands to be serviced, whether you like her or not.’

Surprisingly it was Eva Kuhio who stepped into the argument. She was a big quiet girl, with a slow smile and a meek, compliant manner, that made her the least conspicuous member of the group. She asked:

‘Well, as Martha says, we did talk about this. I talked to my Willy too. I love him and so long as I’ve got him, I’m happy…But suppose we all pair off, there’s still men left with nobody to love or lie with when they’re lonely. That’s a sad thing for them and a bad thing for us all. I was brought up religious and I still believe what I was taught at school and in Church. But I don’t believe God wants to send any man to prison for life; and I don’t believe any of us women has a right to put him there. So, maybe we all have to loosen up a little and give some loving where it’s needed.’

‘I don’t,’ said Charlie Kamakau. ‘No way! No how! If I wanted to go whoring around I’d have stayed single.’

‘You’re sailing the wrong tack, Charlie.’ Simon Cohen was patently hostile. ‘And none of us likes to see a woman slapped around.’

Charlie Kamakau lunged towards him, hand upraised to strike. Adam Briggs and Thorkild wrenched him back to his place.

‘Hold it Charlie! This is tribe talk. You give it respect. Say your own piece if you want.’

‘Let her say it!’ Charlie Kamakau thrust an accusing finger at his wife. ‘Let her tell you who she’s played with, here and on the Frigate Bird and before that! Let her tell me now, what she wants.’

‘Okay then!’ Barbara was on her feet, savage and defiant. ‘You asked for it. Here it is! I’m sick of you Charlie Kamakau! You’re jealous and you slap me around because you can’t do what a man ought to do with a woman. I chase around to get what I don’t get in bed with you. That’s the truth and you know it! So here and now, I’m finished. I don’t want any part of you any more!’

There was a long, wary silence as they faced each other across the fire-pit. Then Charlie Kamakau laughed, a high animal sound, horrible to hear.

‘You say that? You, a waterfront tramp I picked out of a bar? You know why I can’t touch you? You stink! You stink of every man that’s ever had you, every rotten bed you’ve ever been laid on! Okay, it’s finished!’

Charlie Kamakau turned on his heel and strode away towards the beach. Tioto got up to follow him.

‘I’ll bet you do lover!’ Barbara Kamakau shouted at his back. ‘I’ll bloody bet you do!’

‘Go to bed, woman!’ said Molly Kaapu wearily. ‘You’ve made enough grief for one night!’

Later, when the others had retired to sleep, and she walked with Thorkild on the beach, Sally Anderton summed it up in sober, clinical fashion:

‘A dangerous mess, sweetheart. Charlie was stripped down and castrated tonight. How are we going to restore his self-esteem?’

‘I doubt any woman will get close to him for a long time yet – if any one would want to after tonight. Goddammit! He’s the most useful man we’ve got, and that little bitch …’

‘Don’t blame her too much, my love. She’s had a rough time too. Charlie’s got a violent streak in him.’

‘I know. That’s what worries me. I’ll have to work hard to hold his loyalty and get him to see things in perspective. That was a gruelling session tonight, and in the end nothing was accomplished.’

‘I think we accomplished a lot.’ Sally was very definite about it. ‘There was a real encounter between us all. Issues were faced and resolved at least in part.’

‘And being willing to share themselves. That’s what you wanted to say, wasn’t it?’

‘No. It’s a part of the old life I understood and approved; but, when I heard you say it – yes, I was jealous.’

‘That makes two of us, doesn’t it? I don’t like sharing you. You don’t like sharing me.’

‘It’s not a game, darling. It’s a fact of our life with which we’re all trying to come to terms. I have no wish to go necking on the beach here with another man; but – how can I put it – if I thought I could give Charlie Kamakau back his manhood and bring him back into the group again, I’d do it. Would you hold me back?’

‘People are more dangerous,’ said Gunnar Thorkild. ‘Let’s sleep down here tonight.’

5