Cuttlefish (27 page)

“We make landfall tomorrow in the Cameron Lakes on Flinders Island,” said Cookie, cheerfully, on her next watch, when Clara reported for duty at the sink. Tim was already working. “The old man likes to stock up with coal and give the engineers a proper chance to give the engines and compressors a once-over. The navy keep a bit of a blockade on the Westralia Ports—which is why the submarines are so welcome—so getting in is always a bit of cat-and-mouse game. The government of Westralia have a few subs of their own too. Anyway, yous will likely get to see a bit of Australia on Flinders. The Straitsmen like visitors, so long as it's not the law or someone trying to tell them what to do. Skipper'll tell you too, but don't make no
comments about black fellas. Not that you'd be likely to, I reckon, Tim-o. Them Straitsmen is a bit touchy about it. Some of them are a mix of black-fella blood and the old sealers, and them that is take exception, and them that says they isn't take exception too. Half of 'em are related, so yer just don't say anything nasty about anyone else. And just be careful about the mutton you get offered.”

“Why? Is it stolen?” asked Clara. “I've heard about the sheep thieves in Australia. They wrote about them in the newspapers back in Ireland.”

Cookie chuckled. “Yer think we're all a bunch of Ned Kellys, don't yous? No, it's likely to be sea-mutton or mutton-bird.”

“They have flying and swimming sheep?” asked Clara, sceptically. She'd been on the receiving end of Cookie's tall stories before.

“And drop bears,” said Cookie, with his best attempt at a serious expression. “Have I told yous about the drop bears? You see that you ask the Straitsmen for a nice pointy hat to keep off the drop bears, before you go walking in the gum forests.”

“He'll tell you about the Bunyip next,” said Tim, grating a floppy carrot.

“He did,” said Clara. “And drop bears. But it's the first time he's brought up mutton-birds and sea-mutton.”

Tim looked critically at the carrot stub. “Dunno about sea-mutton, but we could use some fresh food. These carrots are ready to be ghosts too, Cookie.”

“Not ghosts, it's a monster the Bunyip is, Tim-o. We'll get some food on Flinders. But I'm not cooking mutton-bird on this boat again. It's a kind of seabird, and the fat has a strong fishy smell to it when it cooks. A very strong smell. Not a good idea in a submarine. The sea-mutton is good though—that's what they call abalone.”

“What's that?” asked Clara.

“Ah, it is like a giant flat sea snail.…Yer shouldn't pull such faces,” said Cookie, laughing at them. “Your faces will set like that. It's very good, so long as it's been beaten properly, I tell yous.”

The “all quiet” light came on, and the sound of the engines was stilled. It had been so long since it had happened that it was a shock to them.

The game of cat and mouse was on again. And the mouse had got fat and lazy out in the peaceful South Pacific.

“They're doing a very much better job of systematically tracking us, since we got rid of the traitor on board,” said Lieutenant Ambrose, tiredly. “Every time we come up to breathe, well, there's two of them, within the hour. Always two of them. The skipper reckons they must have some new hydrophones or something. But this hunting in pairs is new too.”

Clara's mother looked thoughtful. “It sounds to me like they are triangulating on us.”

“That's the captain's idea too, ma'am. But they are managing to do it even when we run on the electric motors, with the boat all quiet. We lost them the last time by even stopping those. He thinks they must have something that picks up our screws, whereas before this they were relying on the noise from the compressors, really. The Stirling engines are quiet compared to most engines, but the compressors aren't. It's not a good feeling to have the ship adrift, without steerage. We need to be moving forward for the rudder and vanes to work. Dangerous waters, the Bass Strait. Still, we should creep into Cameron Inlet and the lakes tonight. We can sit there and recharge our batteries and check the engines for the last leg. It's as dangerous as in and out of London.”

T
he eastern side of Flinders Island had been, since the Great Melt, a swampy wild place, fronted with drowned land and sandbars and a series of interlocking salty estuaries and lakes, tucked in between small forested granite mountains. It was from one of these lakes, hidden behind three granite outcrops, that an enormous flock of ducks rose in alarm when they saw a submarine pop up in the predawn light. Tim was on deck-watch, helping to guide the submarine down an ale-brown channel to the secret quay.

Their tie-up was plainly a well-used one, carefully hidden from the air by nets that were laced with vegetation—some plants were even grown in pots.

A figure detached itself from the tree it had been leaning against. “G'day. Been expecting yous,” said the man in his green-checked shirt and elderly floppy hat.

“You have?” asked Tim, nearly dropping the monkey's fist on the rope he'd been about to throw. They'd even kept radio silence, knowing Werner would have betrayed their codes and calling frequencies.

“Well, it seemed obvious that yous were on yer way. They're looking about for yous. Got troops up on Walker's Lookout and ships hanging about. So yous must be coming.” He grinned. “I've never seen a search anything like it,” said the Straitsman, taking off his hat and scratching his curly black hair. “What sort of cargo yous got that's so important?”

“We've a few days in hand to try and just sit it out, and hope that they believe we have been and gone,” said Captain Malkis. “I will be allowing the men a little shore leave, in shifts, in the company of several Straitsmen. Normally, we spend a few days here allowing the men to hunt with the locals, and to do a little fishing, while we prepare the boat for that last haul. I've had to ban shooting for fear of attracting too much attention, but the locals will bring us fresh meat and fish. The final sector is usually quite demanding, so it's well to let the crew get plenty of rest and some exercise. So ma'am, while I am not prepared to allow you and your daughter off alone, I would be happy to include you into one of the shore parties. There is a group walking up the third Patriarch this afternoon, if you'd like to join them.” He smiled. “The cook and young Barnabas I believe are both going out with them.”

Clara's mother looked at the green bushland. “I would like to, but well, we've come so far. Is it worth the risk, Captain?”

“In many places I'd say no,” said the captain. “But in all honesty, I think there is a minimal risk here. To give you an example from your home in Ireland, the island is about the size of County Waterford, ma'am. It's mostly forest or swampland or mountain. There are a hundred and twenty grenadiers, and fifty Hussars here, looking for us. The Straitsmen know these wilds like the back of their hands, and the soldiers are fresh out from England, apparently. The Hussars' horses are sick and the grenadiers kept getting lost. And informers are usually a problem…but this is a very closed society. The Straitsmen don't like what they consider ‘occupiers,' and the idea of leaving these islands is frightening to them. They need to trade to survive, but the Imperials are stopping them from fishing or shipping hides. We take cargoes for them and bring them things they need. They've accepted us, and have never betrayed us. Saved my groats a few years ago, and that meant almost every man on the island had to cooperate. I trust them. Besides, you'd be with a party of thirty armed men from the boat, as well as ten Straitsmen. I think you will be safe enough.”

So they'd gone out, threading their way under the she-oaks and up into the gum forests, climbing up to where they could look out over the eastern coast, high up the hill. The air was clear and still cool. The sea, a mile distant, was azure.

“The ships out there are as thick as flies on a three-days-dead 'roo,” said the Straitsman, as Clara, her mother, Cookie, Tim, and a few others sat under the gum trees on granite boulders, which the lichen spattered into orange patches. He pointed out across Babel Island, where the hundreds of thousands of birds drifted up like smoke, to the open water beyond. “At night we been counting lights from the lookout up on Strzelecki Mountain. There are 'nother two ships in the sounds. 'Nother off Vansittart Island. If we get a good blow there'll be rich pickings,” he said with relish, “because they don't know our water. One nearly run aground on Potboil Shoal already. They won't go near there again,” he said with some satisfaction. “The tide runs strong over it. Your skipper knows where to set his course, because I showed him. Mind you, he still got stuck on a bank off Lady Barron once and had to wait for the tide. The policeman had to be called away up to Memana in a hurry or he'd have seen her; most everyone else on the island did! But the policeman's a mainlander, only been here thirty years.”

Clara could hear that he didn't think much of “mainlanders.” Plainly one had to be born and bred here to be a Straitsman.

“I told yous they're all wreckers and half-pirates,” said Cookie, cheerfully. “You reckon they got any chance of finding us?”

The Straitsman snorted. “Not while yous are in here. The island's more'n sixty mile long, and most of it is still bush. They tried one of them airships, and the roaring forties took it off toward New Zealand. They tried bombing something here a few years ago, and it took us a month to put the fires out—burned their camp to a crisp. Mind you, when they landed that bunch of redcoats, they been asking questions. Everybody is being very helpful. We told them if they started any fires it'd burn the lot of them, though. And we
explained how the fire will move faster than a running man. Filled them with horror stories. Gave them a Port Jackson shark, some salmon that hadn't been bled, and a couple of bluehead parrot fish. They told us how good they was.”

He and Cookie doubled up laughing.

“What's so funny?” asked Tim.

“They're trash fish,” explained the Straitsman. “We use 'em for bait in the crayfish traps. Now if someone gives you a feed of flathead, he's a friend of yours.”

“And if he offers you a couple of pike and tells you to keep 'em cool for a few days, before you eat them…,” said Cookie, digging an elbow into his Straitsman-mate's ribs.

“Some people like them like that,” said the Straitsman, grinning.

“And some people like mutton-birds,” said Cookie.

“Heh. Well yer might have to get used to them. The net they've set for yous around here is pretty tight,” said the Straitsman.

“There might be worse places to be trapped,” said Clara, looking out at the coast.

“Too right!” said the Straitsman. “There's no better place in the world, and plenty worse, like Westralia, eh, Cookie. We could use some new people, beside the policeman.”

“And in thirty years you'd still be a foreigner,” said Cookie.

“I'd put up with being a foreigner for this,” said Clara's mother, dreamily. “It's a wonderful place. Well, if I could have Jack with me here, I'd stay forever, I think. But I can't at the moment, and so I need to change the world first. Maybe when we've done that.”

It had never struck Clara that that was what her mother was hoping to do. It was quite an ambition: changing the world. Changing the whole world to get her dad free—that was something only her mother could decide to do. She smiled to herself, her eyes a little moist.

She noticed that Tim had got up and was walking onward to the
ramp of rock that led to the actual summit, so she casually got up and wandered that way too. It probably didn't fool anyone, but even her mother seemed prepared to not notice for a few minutes. The Straitsmen had checked the whole area over. They were expert trackers and were sure that there were no problems here. Except for the ones that they had brought with them, of course.

She found Tim a little higher up, sitting looking out at the sea, his face a little troubled. “Penny for your thoughts,” she said, lightly. He looked up startled. He was a very intense thinker. And now that she'd learned to read his complexion, he blushed easily. “I was thinking about you,” he said gruffly.

She sat down next to him. “Snap.”

“What?”

“I was thinking about you too. About…well all sort of things. Us.” It was her turn to blush. How did you tell someone that you had followed them to be alone with them? You could never be really, truly, sure that they were alone together on the submarine, short of going somewhere together they'd be in all sorts of trouble if they were caught in, like the escape hatch or one of the officers' cabins. And by now, she knew they probably would be caught. She'd briefly held his hand under soapy water in the galley. Stood with her hip touching his while washing dishes. Compared to the stories the girls told back at school in Fermoy—what a lifetime ago that seemed—that wasn't much.

“Yes. Well, that's the problem, see. Look, I'm just a cabin boy. In about two weeks, maybe, we should have you, and your mother, safe in Westralia. And I'll be on my way in a few days. I may not be back for…years. And I'm just a cabin boy. I might not pass my tickets. If I lose my place on the
Cuttlefish
, I won't be able to come back to Australia. I…I think I love you. But I may never see you again.”

Clara wasn't ready for this. She really, really wasn't. He was being all grown up and serious. In the back of her mind she'd known this herself. Life would sweep them apart. And the world was so big
and…She swallowed. She'd come up here wanting to be kissed. Not to cry. And he made it worse by taking her hand. She looked at his earnest eyes, not with their normal twinkle of laughter or mischief in them at all, and did not know what to say. He wasn't even whistling.

She gave a little sigh. “Of course you'll pass your tickets. Lieutenant Ambrose said he'd asked the captain if he'd sponsor you signing up as a candidate officer. I'm jealous. Mother is already trying to plan me going back to school.” She squeezed his hand, leaned her head against his shoulder. “I don't want you to go away. But you must. And I still hurt so much from losing my father forever. I'm…I'm not…I don't know. I don't want to get too involved with a friend I know I have to lose.”

He nodded, letting go of her hand. “I guess I never should have asked. I'm just an Underperson, a darkie too…”

“That's not true. It doesn't matter! Not to me. And I get angry when you talk yourself down like that. I…I like you more than anyone else I've ever met. I just…don't want to hurt like my mother does. Now that I know, I see how she looks every time something reminds her of my dad.”

She laughed awkwardly. “I sound like a fool, don't I, Tim?”

He shook his head. “Not to me. Not ever.”

“Even when I was kissing you in Rivas?”

He grinned, looking more like his normal self. “I'm not sure about the tongue bit.”

She snorted with laughter and embarrassment. “You think you're not sure? I had to make it up from what I had heard, and what I saw the Cashel girls doing. They used to practice on each other.”

“I wouldn't mind being used for practice. While we're not on the boat,” he said, tentatively.

Downslope, someone called. “Time to go, if yer going to get back for yer tea.”

It was still a good practice, even if it was cut short.