Tears of the Moon (25 page)

Niah moved to the side, looking down to where the air-hose and lifeline disappeared into the tranquil sea. She glanced at Ahmed and found him watching her intently. If the crew had not been present she suspected he would have spoken to her about joining Tyndall in his bed. She saw a warning in his dark eyes and knew immediately mat should she ever do anything to hurt or upset Tyndall, she would have to answer to Ahmed. But she did not cower under his intense gaze. Instead she felt a rising knowledge of the power she had over Tyndall. She reciprocated Ahmed’s challenging stare and then suddenly, laughing, she ripped the sarong from her body, and dressed in only a brief strip of cloth that wrapped around her buttocks, she pulled herself up onto the gunwale, and dived smoothly into the sea.

Tyndall was four to five fathoms below and he caught his breath at the shadow and movement at the edge of his peripheral vision, fearing a shark. But as he turned his head he saw, like a sea siren or mer-maid, the near-naked shape of Niah, as she glided towards him, kicking her legs, her hair streaming behind her. He could see the laughter in her eyes and he reached out a clumsy gloved hand towards her bare breasts. She blew him a kiss and grasping the shell bag slid it up the manila rope line as she kicked towards the surface.

Two of the crew eagerly helped her back on board, lifting the half-filled bag onto the deck as they eyed the glistening figure of Niah.

‘Is that all he has? Send the basket back down,’ said Ahmed, ignoring Niah.

Yoshi made no comment, remembering the first time he went into the world below and how sometimes, now, he regarded it as his real world. No one knew he sang and hummed as he worked, the pleasing sound reverberating in the metal helmet as he sang the folk songs of his childhood which his mother had taught him. It was a world that was familiar, and while he was ever alert to danger, he felt at peace in the sea, and despite the often intense cold, he enjoyed the work. The wildness of the other divers during lay up, the intrigues, the fights, the brothels and gambling, the fierce loyalty of the other Japanese ‘club’ members, did not interest him. He had the reputation of being a loner and it was one of the reasons Tyndall and Ahmed chose him.

Now dressed and ignored by the crew as they went about their jobs, Niah hung over the side again watching Tyndall’s air bubbles lazily pop to the surface in a steady stream.

For Tyndall it was all fascinating and he felt he’d been down for hours. His body and head ached and he had lost track of time. If it hadn’t been for his boots planted firmly on the seabed and a glimmer of light slanting through the water above, he would have easily felt disoriented and imagined himself drifting into a silvery aqua oblivion. He concentrated and focused on tiny objects and watched a small marine creature inch its way across a coral-encrusted rock.

It was Niah whose attention was diverted from the stream of bubbles breaking the surface to a distant movement on the water. It was fleeting, and for a while there was nothing more to be seen and she
was about to look away when it came again, a brief spurt of water. She called out, ‘Whale!’

All heads shot up and they stared in the direction of her pointing arm. The seconds, a minute, ticked by in silence. Yoshi was standing, shading his eyes, Taki held Tyndall’s line, poised to give three rapid tugs, the shell openers sat with motionless knives as they too scanned the sea. The two men on the pump were the only ones moving. Ahmed looked back at Niah with a raised eyebrow.

She was about to shrug and protest that she was sure she had seen the blow, when, so loud, so fast, so surprising they were all stunned, a massive whale breeched beside the lugger, slapping its giant flukes against the hull.

Niah screamed and the
Bulan
shivered with the impact of the brush from an old bull longer than the lugger. The crew sprang into action, Taki sending an urgent message to Tyndall they were bringing him up as Ahmed and the crew began to set the sails.

‘Quick, bring back tuan, quick,’ cried Niah, tugging at Taki’s arm as he methodically wrenched in the lifeline. Ahmed shouted at her in Malay to move back and she stood by wringing her hands. Once again the whale surfaced, regarding them with a small imperious eye and showing a hide encrusted with barnacles.

There was near panic on board as the whale scraped along the starboard side as the boat heeled well to port. The tender fell to the deck and momentarily lost control of the lifeline and air hose which were over the port side of the boat.

Tyndall, who had been unceremoniously jerked towards the surface, now dropped back to the seabed, wondering what the hell was going on. Then, before he could make sense of the situation he was again jerked upwards. He felt the pressure swell inside his head, and he gasped long sucking breaths of air, wondering what had happened. Then all movement stopped and he was left dangling like a puppet on a string. He tilted his head to stare upward.

As if looking through the wrong end of a telescope, the scene above him seemed unreal and he felt his heart squeezed with fear. The silhouette of the
Bulan
was dwarfed by a great black lolling shape just below the hull. Tyndall was astern the lugger and as his vision adjusted he saw the flukes of the great tail were directly between him and the lugger. He watched in helpless horror. The whale moved upward so its back was against the
Bulan
. Tyndall waited, terrified the whale would flip over the lugger.

On the deck everyone was again flung off balance as the
Bulan
rolled and shook while the whale started scratching the barnacles off its crusty hide.

The lugger began to move forward now that sails were going up but they couldn’t get fully under way until the master was safely on board, and that was impossible now that the whale was between the boat and the diver. Taki took a turn around a bollard with the hose and lifeline. Yoshi and Ahmed conferred quickly and Ahmed shouted to Niah and the crew to get anything metal—wok, tools, anything—and to start making as much metallic noise as possible in the hope of scaring the whale away. Niah ran to the
main cabin and grabbed Tyndall’s rifle, checked it was loaded, then dashed back on deck.

‘
Tidak
,’ shouted Ahmed in alarm when he saw her. A wounded and enraged whale could destroy the boat in seconds. At that moment the boat heaved again, throwing Niah off balance. She dropped the rifle which went off, the bullet whizzing into the sea. The sharp crack of the bullet seemed to have an effect, for as suddenly as it appeared, the whale disappeared from sight. For a few seconds everyone stood there in a frozen tableau, incredulous at their luck. Then, with Niah screaming for them to hurry, and Ahmed shouting instructions, Tyndall was hauled towards the lugger.

Then, into the small gap of water between Tyndall and the hull roared the train-like bulk of the whale. It crashed against the side of the boat as it charged past and dived, its white speckled triangular flukes catching Tyndall’s lines and ripping them like strands of hair.

Tyndall’s body spun wildly and painfully in the surging wake as the whale tore the lifeline and air hose. He felt the helmet was going to be wrenched off his shoulders and his hands instinctively flew up and miraculously caught hold of the light line used for hauling baskets of shell to the surface. He felt himself choking as the air in his suit was pressured out of the broken hose. He had to use both hands to hold on to the rope for he would sink like a stone if he let go. Panic was almost instantly replaced by terror as he struggled without effect to haul himself up the line to the surface.

As soon as Taki gave the alarm Niah was over the side, struggling to disentangle her sarong. Yoshi and Taki flashed past her, strong strokes taking them to Tyndall within seconds. With one on either side of him and Tyndall hauling on the rope they suddenly broke the surface, and with Niah grabbing the remnant of air hose and holding it above water, were hauled to the ladder by the cheering and shouting crew.

Tyndall was nearly unconscious and too heavy for the rescuers to lift on board. They held him by the ladder while the chest weights were removed and the helmet unscrewed. The rush of fresh air revived Tyndall and he managed to stagger the few steps up the ladder before he was dragged over the side. He collapsed on the deck, bleeding from nose and ears, his skin grey-white. Niah crawled over the side and rushed to cradle his head in her lap as the men began to take him out of the boots and suit. Niah pulled off his gloves and rubbed his hands and, as Tyndall coughed and the colour began to return to his cheeks, she kissed the shell pendant still around his neck.

Ahmed got the
Bulan
under sail, noting that several other luggers, having seen the whale attack, were also under way.

Tyndall had recovered by the next day and insisted they stay to finish the patch of shell. Yoshi agreed, but for the first time since he had begun diving, he was fearful as he went over the side, remembering the death of his father’s fleet by a whale.

However, the rest of the trip was uneventful, and Tyndall found great joy in the arms and the happy laugh of Niah, who made no secret of her devotion and attachment to him.

One evening she sat cross-legged on the bunk, his head in her lap, massaging his scalp. She asked him, as all women were wont to do he thought, about the other women in his life. She wanted to know about Mem Hennessy and he tried to explain they were friends, business friends.

‘Why you have no wife?’ she asked, using a new word she’d learned.

Tyndall closed his eyes in pleasure as her strong fingers ran through his hair, soothing his head. ‘Um, I did once. In a far away place. Very cold. You wouldn’t like it.’ He hadn’t thought of Belfast in years. It was his past, of no relevance now.

‘Where wife go?’

‘Heaven I suppose. Spirit place. She died. Big sickness.’ He didn’t want to talk any more and moved her hands down to rub the back of his neck.

‘Mem Hennessy wife too,’ said Niah after a while, causing Tyndall to look up at her, slightly puzzled.

‘Yeah. That’s right. She’s a wife.’ He was prepared to let it rest at that.

Niah was silent for a while, quietly massaging.

‘You like Mem Hennessy?’

Tyndall stiffened and grabbed her hands, looking up at her. ‘Good Lord, girl, what are you getting at? Like her? Well, she’s a nice young woman. Why do you ask?’

‘Mem Hennessy no like me. No like you get me.’

‘Rubbish.’

‘You see,’ said Niah sadly. ‘She send Niah away.’

‘Nonsense,’ said Tyndall and he pulled her down and she lay on top of him, light as a sea breeze, her hair and skin smelling of salt. She licked his ear and nuzzled her face in his neck, clinging to him like a lovable puppy. Tyndall realised however that she saw Olivia as a threat, someone who might send her away. It began to dawn on Tyndall that this romantic interlude was coming to an end and that soon they would be returning to Broome and the prying eyes of a small community. Suddenly the thought of giving up this pretty and affectionate girl was an appalling idea. As he felt his passion rise under Niah’s expert hands he decided to worry about what to do with her later.

The same thoughts had been on Ahmed’s mind and one evening while he and Tyndall rowed back to the
Shamrock
he delicately raised the question of Niah’s future.

Tyndall was vague. It troubled him that he’d become so attached to her. He hadn’t realised how empty his life had been. How he had envied Olivia and Conrad their shared life and companionship. ‘Don’t know. S’pose she could make herself useful round the place. She doesn’t want to go back home, nowhere to go really.’

‘Being useful could cause plenty talk, tuan,’ said Ahmed gently.

‘Hmmm,’ said Tyndall in half agreement.

‘No good for business. No good for Mem and Tuan Hennessy. All people have their place in Broome. You break rules,’ sighed Ahmed.

Tyndall gave a weak smile. ‘I know what you mean. But she’s a nice little thing. Bright, you know. Easier to get along with than most of the women in Broome, I’ll wager.’

Nearing the
Shamrock
, he could make out the silhouette of Niah on the deck outlined against the starry sky. He was acutely aware of a pleasant and sudden surge of excitement that was just as suddenly neutralised by Olivia Hennessy striding into his consciousness. Yes, that was going to be difficult, he acknowledged to himself. Explaining away the relationship to Mrs Hennessy. The old hands of Broome would accept it readily enough so long as both of them were fairly discreet in public. After all, everyone knew what went on in Sheba Lane some afternoons in the lay up season and after dark, but no one talked about it publicly. Ah, to hell with it. But try as he might, the prospect of facing Olivia Hennessy worried him. He suddenly realised that she was more than just a business partner. He didn’t want to let her down, not just because they were in business together, but because she was Olivia. It was but momentarily disconcerting. The sight of Niah smiling down at him in the moonlight, her long hair ruffled by the light breeze, and the sensual memories of her body filled his mind with only one thought.

CHAPTER ELEVEN