The Smuggler's Curse Read online

  Several sailors start laughing, which makes it worse. The only sensible thought I have is that at least I am not splattered all over the deck like so many pounds of strawberry jam.

  BELOW DECKS

  After I’ve cleaned up my own mess, the Bosun sends me below decks with the tar-smeared boy. His name is Teuku Nyak King. It is a traditional Sumatran name, he says, but everyone on board just calls him Teuku, or sometimes Your Majesty, as a bit of a joke.

  A smell just like that of the Curse fills my nose and makes me long for home — must, sweat, stale ale and damp timber. The space is the width of the boat, running about half the length and narrow near the bow. Light from a grating in the deck above filters in, casting a checkerboard pattern on the floor at the far end. Canvas hammocks fill the area on each side and a long table, stained and well-worn, runs down the centre. Against the sides of the cabin, wooden chests of all different sizes take up the confined space.

  ‘You can have Markham’s hammock — that one,’ says Teuku. ‘He don’t need his hammock, no more.’ His voice sounds slow and sad.

  ‘Why? Why won’t he need his hammock? Where’s he going to sleep?’ I ask.

  ‘He was ship’s boy before you, but the Dutch got him last time the Captain was on Sumatra. Got three of them. All good’uns too. We won’t be seeing them again for a good few years, I think. Even if they do keep their heads attached to their necks. Those Dutchy colonials, they invaded, and now they believe they own Sumatra. They are a nasty lot. Shoot you as quick as look at you. Killed hundreds of us on Sumatra they have. Thousands. Men, women, children. They are butchers. And they call us savages.’

  ‘Oh,’ I reply rather pathetically, not knowing at all how to respond. ‘Is that where you are from, then?’

  ‘Not any more,’ he answers. ‘I’m from here now. This boat. I have nowhere else. They killed all my family, burned down our village. They killed everyone. In reprisal, they say. Captain Bowen found me on the beach half-dead.’ He lifts his shirt to show me a white scar, vivid against his dark skin, running vertically down his chest and across his stomach. Another even uglier scar cuts across his forearm.

  I look at him, my eyes widening in shock. I don’t know what to say. What can you say?

  ‘Sam Chi, the cook, he stitched me up.’

  ‘Oh,’ I reply, again, stupidly. ‘Is there no one left at all? You’ve got nobody?’

  ‘Just Captain Bowen.’

  ‘Where do you think we’re headed?’ I ask, trying to change the subject.

  ‘North,’ he says. ‘It nearly always is north. The Captain hasn’t told us just where yet. Maybe Aceh again to finish off his business. We had to get out of there in a hurry last time.’

  Aceh. There has been lots of talk at the Curse about Aceh, and reports in The West Australian newspaper of all sorts of death, destruction and atrocities in those parts.

  ‘The Dutch bombarded the main town of Banda Aceh,’ continued Teuku. ‘They took over. Slaughtered a lot of people. The Sultan fled into the hills, formed the resistance and is fighting to win back our land. But the Dutch have sent thousands of soldiers from Holland to enslave everyone. They want Sumatra and are going to any lengths to keep it.’

  ‘Why?’ I ask. ‘Why do they want Sumatra so much?”

  ‘They are greedy,’ he replies fiercely. ‘They want the spices we grow. They want the pepper and chilli and tobacco. Especially the tobacco. And they’ll kill everyone to get them.’

  I peer into the gloom of the crew’s quarters. I am becoming increasingly worried about my future. Whatever was my mother thinking?

  ‘Get some sleep,’ Teuku says. ‘You’ll be on the last dogwatch. Eight bells. We all do watch. Even the Captain. But fall asleep on watch, and it’s over the side for you. No discussing it, no second chances. Splash. Food for the fishes. Be warned, ship’s boy, Captain Bowen, he’s fair, but he’s tough. He don’t stand no nonsense when we’re at sea. Break his rules and he’ll break you. Into little pieces.’ Teuku runs his finger across his throat like a dagger and winks at me. I guess he is joking about that part at least. I certainly hope so.

  ‘Are there headhunters in Aceh? Same as in Borneo?’ I ask. I have read all about savage headhunters in an old copy of the Illustrated London News a pearling master left in the Saloon Bar. They shoot you with poisoned blowpipes then they cut your head off as a souvenir.

  ‘The headhunters of Aceh are even more fierce than on Borneo. I’d watch myself if I were you. Them headhunters, you’re just their type.’ He laughs lightly at my discomfort. ‘But the real savages are the Dutch soldiers. For every man they lose they burn down a village and kill everyone they find. Everyone. Then they leave their bodies to rot in the sun, as a warning.’

  Without another word, Teuku turns and leaves, bounding up the steps to the deck.

  Had my mother any idea when she sold me that those shiny golden coins meant my probable death? A deep sense of unease settles on me. I have never been away from home before, and now I am expected to look after myself. I somehow know no one is going to help me out. And I have to share a cabin with a bunch of smelly men who all hate me and couldn’t care if I died in my sleep. They’d just throw my body overboard and get in on with it.

  How can my life have changed so much in such a short time? Only last week my biggest worry was keeping out of Ma’s way, or wondering if Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn were was about to be killed by Injun Joe in Chapter Twenty-eight. Now though, my outlook is decidedly bleak, to say the least. And what’s worse, we could be heading into the middle of the Aceh Independence War between the Sumatrans and the Dutch.

  I sit on the edge of Markham’s hammock and swing my legs in, and very nearly upend the hammock and topple straight out again. The hammock swings wildly from side to side while I clutch on tightly. Luckily, Teuku is not there to see me.

  I close my eyes, but it is no use. I’ve never been able to sleep in the middle of the afternoon at the best of times, let alone here, in a hammock, with everything that’s happened. I open them again to find someone standing over me.

  ‘Red, it’s me. I made a brew. Youse want one?’

  I almost cry in relief. Mr Smith is easy to recognise, with the right side of his face scarred and blackened from an old misfired musket wound. He stands shorter than most of the crew, but he has the look of a house brick, square and solid. His skin is like old leather and his arms are strong and scarred. He has several tattoos, including a picture of a woman wearing no clothes across his chest. I know Mr Smith, but I don’t know much about his life. He does not seem to have a family, at least not in Broome. But then Broome is often where men go to get away from their families.

  He is a regular at the Curse and a decent bloke. The pleasure of seeing a friendly face after all the scowls and teasing feels good.

  He smiles at my efforts struggling to get out of the hammock. ‘I’m the gunner on this here scow,’ he says, handing me a battered enamel mug.

  I take a sip of the hot liquid and look at him gratefully. ‘I don’t fit in here, Mr Smith. On the Black Dragon. Not at all. Not one bit. The Captain hates me, and the men think I’m a raw fool. They look at me like something the cat dragged in. Worse, like something the cat did.’

  ‘Youse sticks with me, boy, and I’ll watch ya back,’ he says. ‘I started as ship’s boy, back well a’fore you was born. On the Pandora, it were, a four-masted square-rigger out of Southampton, in England, when I was about your age, maybe a bit younger. Back before those damn smelly steam ships clogged up all the ’arbours. I know the ropes right enough. I’m still alive, and I’ll stay that way. I’ll try and learn ya’ right.’

  ‘There’s a lot to learn.’

  ‘Don’t you worry none. The crew’ll do alright by youse too, once they get to know youse. Youse’ll see. They’re not a bad lot. Not as ’ard as they pretend. We all ’ave to get along. The Cap’n demands it, ’e do. ’e don’t hold with malingerers and lead swingers and sea lawyers. And ’e don’t toler
ate no bullies. ’e reckons ’e’s the only one allowed to bully. ’e keeps on about us being a few, a ’appy few, we band of brothers — for whoever sheds ’is blood with me shall be my brother.’

  I am not entirely sure what he means, but I nod as if I do. I have heard the expression before, somewhere, but I do not want to share any blood at all, even if it does make me a brother. There were many times in the past when I wanted a brother, but not enough to give up any of my precious blood.

  ‘What about Markham? Teuku just told me about him and the others.’

  ‘That was just bad luck,’ Mr Smith replies. ‘They walked into a bar carryin’ their guns, not knowin’ it was full of Dutch marines off duty, including a officer. The Dutch reckoned they was mercenaries fightin’ with the rebels. Maybe spies. Nothin’ we could do for ’em, though the Cap’n, he tried, ’e did. Nearly got ’isself topped ’e did, tryin’.’ Mr Smith shrugs, ending the story, leaving me curious. He finishes his tea and swings into his hammock, effortlessly. It creaks once, and he seems to fall asleep instantly.

  Over the next hour, half-a-dozen more men make their way noisily down the steps and eventually to the hammocks. They tease and poke fun at each other, and then spit, curse, burp and fart loudly for good measure. They completely ignore me.

  In spite of Mr Smith’s promise to look after me, I lie awake, still nervous, thinking about being shot or having my head chopped off, and wondering how likely it is to actually happen. With every passing minute, we draw further and further away from home and towards an unknown and probably deadly shore. And with every second that goes by I am feeling queasier and queasier. I try taking deep breaths, but the seasickness will not go away. In fact, it gets worse. Any minute I’m going to chuck up again, bucket loads. It was embarrassing enough up on deck but in the cabin, it will be unforgivable and I definitely will be tossed overboard.

  CUSTOMS

  I feel absolutely dreadful, as bad as I ever have. Below decks is hot and uncomfortable and surprisingly noisy. The ship’s timbers creak, men who will be on the late watch snore, splutter and fart, and several cry out alarmingly in their sleep. I have never slept in a hammock before, and the constant swaying makes me feel even sicker. I decide to go back up to the deck for some fresh air.

  On deck, I lean against the port rail and feel the clean wind against my cheeks. I have just brought up my fill of vomit over the side, enough to feed a million fishes, when a loud shout comes from the watch up at the masthead.

  ‘Ship astern! Nor’-easterly course. Dead astern.’

  ‘You, boy. Fetch the Captain. Move yourself!’ yells the Bosun.

  ‘What? Where?’ I stammer in confusion, spitting out the last of the vile taste from my mouth.

  Bosun Stevenson lifts his massive arm and points to six stairs leading down to the stern cabin. ‘There, for God’s sake! Now!’

  ‘Begging your pardon, Captain, sir,’ I say when he swings open his cabin door. I peer past him. His walnut-lined cabin is enormous, taking up all the rear of the deck. A long wall of windows lines the stern and, at the centre, a dining table big enough for at least a dozen men has been set for two. Against one wall, a polished writing desk is covered in rolled maps, papers and journals, and, on the opposite wall, a wooden bunk with the bedclothes still waiting to be made up.

  ‘Spit it out, boy!’

  ‘A ship, sir, astern of us, sir.’

  The Captain does not wait. Mounting the steps two at a time, he hurries onto the deck and reaches for his telescope, and quickly focuses it.

  Bosun Stevenson already has his glass trained on the unknown ship to our stern.

  ‘What do you think?’ asks the Captain. ‘She’s a steam cutter sure enough. Look at that.’ Thick black smoke spews from its funnel. ‘Customs?’

  ‘Could be a Navy dispatch cutter,’ says the Bosun, sounding vaguely hopeful.

  ‘About as much chance of that as my Aunt Bessie’s three-legged dog winning the Melbourne Cup, I’ll wager,’ continues the Captain. ‘Look at the state she’s in. Only the poxy Customs would let a vessel go to rack and ruin like that.’ He shakes his head slightly in disgust. ‘What a disgrace. Sailors of the Queen’s Navy were taught better. Isn’t that so, Bosun?’

  ‘Indeed, we were, Captain,’ agrees Bosun Stevenson. ‘Pride in our ship, pride in ourselves. Ship shape and Bristol fashion. Do you want me to outrun the fools? That useless, stinking steamer will have a top speed of only seven or eight knots, at most. Just say the word, and we can leave them eating our wake.’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure you can Bosun. And why not, eh? Let’s show them a clean pair of heels. We don’t need that oily stink anywhere near us, or the interfering snoops that they are, even though we’ve nothing to hide at the moment. But perhaps not in a week or so, eh, men?’

  The vague, far-off sound of a speaking trumpet on the cutter carries over the space between the two ships but is drowned out by distance and the thud and smack of the acres of canvas and the noise of the wind.

  ‘They’re raising signal flags, Captain,’ says the Bosun.

  The Captain sees me waiting by the steps that lead down to his cabin. ‘Boy!’ he shouts. ‘Fetch my signal book. It’s the black one on my desk. Marked Signal Book,’ he adds, as if I’m an idiot.

  As I go below, Bosun Stevenson bellows, ‘Ease out the jib! Adjust the main boom. Ease it. Ease it! Not too much. Look to that angle.’

  The ship’s bow moves a few degrees to starboard, the motion gently changes, and the speed noticeably increases.

  The Bosun’s commands are obeyed almost instantly. The crew doesn’t question his calls. He is tall and dignified and carries a Bible. I find it incongruous that he is part of this crew, as the rest of the band seem little better than Godless modern day pirates.

  I go to hand the Captain the signal book.

  ‘No, you do it, boy. What do their signal flags read?’ he asks. It is obvious he already knows.

  I fumble through the pages and check each coloured flag flying above the distant cutter against the pictures in the book. ‘Heave - to - and - prepare - to - be - boarded.’

  ‘That’s going to happen,’ laughs Mr Cord cynically. ‘The damn fools obviously don’t know our Captain.’

  Another string of flags is raised on the cutter.

  ‘Heave - to - or - we - will - fire,’ I continue. I look up in surprise. Fire? Really?

  ‘Okay, boy, you can get out from under my feet now. Go and stand against the stern rail,’ orders the Captain.

  ‘If they fire, you’ll be the first one hit standing there at the stern. That’ll lighten the ship’s load by a few pounds,’ laughs Mr Cord.

  I don’t think that is amusing at all, but a few minutes later, a puff of smoke erupts from the single gun on the cutter’s foredeck. Immediately, there is an explosion and large splash to the left of the stern, not far from me, as the cannon shell hits. I duck instinctively. A massive column of water sprays over me. A distant boom is carried away by the wind. Luckily, no thanks to Mr Cord’s prediction, I am not hit, but I can feel my heart starting to thump, just like it did earlier in the day when I was hanging from the mast.

  ‘Well, I wasn’t expecting that,’ declares the Bosun, surprised. ‘That was close.’

  ‘They’re a rum lot. Normally couldn’t hit a cow’s bum with a banjo,’ says the Captain, not looking at all bothered we are under fire. Real actual gunfire!

  ‘Retired relics from the Navy, who’ve been too long baking their brains in the sun, I’d say,’ mutters Mr Cord. ‘Can’t usually see straight, let alone shoot straight.’

  ‘Retired relics? What, like most of us?’ asks the Bosun, smiling slightly.

  Another boom sounds as a second shot fires. This falls astern of us as well but even closer. I duck again in alarm, unable to help myself. What if a shell does hit the deck? It will explode, and we’ll all be blown to bits and killed.

  The Captain laughs as if he hasn’t a care in the world. ‘I’m reminded of the famo
us last words of Union General Sedgewick in the war with the Confederates, who said, why do I need to get down, they couldn’t hit an elephant at this dist… ahhh!’

  Several of the crew standing close to him laugh heartily.

  ‘Captain?’ I ask, almost pleading, imagining their third shot landing right where I stand.

  Seconds later, it almost does, the splash of the shot completely drenching me. It lands so close it barely misses the hull.

  STARS AND STRIPES

  ‘Ahhh!’ I yell loudly in surprise.

  ‘I think the Customs might have a new gunner,’ the Bosun declares. ‘One with a keen eye. That was far too close for comfort.’

  ‘It looks like you may be right, Bosun. That unlucky Union general gives me an idea.’ The Captain glances about and sees me cringing at the stern rail shaking like a leaf. ‘Boy,’ he calls. ‘Do you know what the flag of the United States looks like?’

  I nod, not sure my voice will still work after the shock.

  ‘You’ll find an American flag in the Bosun’s locker over there. Run it up the halyard on the backstay, toot sweet.’

  ‘Captain?’ asks the Bosun.

  ‘We are on the high seas this far out,’ he replies. ‘Her Majesty’s Customs can’t go firing on United States’ ships. Wars have been started by less.’

  ‘But we’re not an American ship,’ he declares.

  ‘You and I know that, Bosun, but that Customs’ captain can’t be sure. Imagine the diplomatic row if we were American and he hit us,’ says the Captain.

  With shaking fingers, I quickly haul the fluttering flag as high as it will go.

  ‘Nothing more to worry about, boy. We’ll be out of range before they decide it is a ruse and can reload. And besides, they are fortunate we don’t fire back. Isn’t that so Mr Smith?’

  ‘Aye, right enough Cap’n,’ replies Mr Smith. ‘I’s sorely tempted to lob a shell down that stinkin’ chimley of theirs.’

  ‘You want to smite them most severely in revenge?’ says the Bosun, smiling only slightly.