The Persimmon Tree (11 page)

Oh, yes — there was something else. On his right hand between the first and second knuckle of each finger was a crude and amateur attempt at tattooing, a single letter on each finger: the first an ‘L’ on his pinkie and, facing outwards, it was followed by the other three letters spelling the word LOVE. Identically, on the fingers of his left hand was the word HATE. He was left-handed so I had to assume that HATE assumed the greater importance.

The gash on his forehead needed stitching if it wasn’t going to leave a bloody great scar, which wouldn’t add to his good looks. I had no way of stitching it and my only treatment was cotton wool soaked in iodine and a bandage from the first aid kit. I also treated the cuts on his feet and legs with a solution of iodine, and fortunately they appeared fairly superficial.

‘I’m hungry, sir,’ the new, clean, white and very battered-looking version of Kevin cried in a plaintive voice.

I cooked him a bowl of rice and tinned fish and watched him eat it ravenously.

‘I think you should lie down, mate, you look pretty whacked.’ He’d copped a bit of sun, although it could have been worse — the cloud cover had increased as the morning wore on and it was now completely overcast, moreover the greasy oil would have effectively protected his fair skin. I gave him a couple of Aspro. Anna had given me three bottles, the only medicine I had in the medical kit except for Epsom salts and iodine. She’d insisted I take all three bottles even though I protested that I hadn’t had a headache in two years. I recall how she’d laughed, ‘
Mijn
papa, he buys always a big box, twenty-four bottles, for the morning his head and
ja
, also at night.’ It wasn’t hard to see that the little bloke was completely done in. Still in the nuddy, I took him down below where I made him climb into the double bunk in the forward cabin. Despite the noonday heat, in a couple of minutes he was dead to the world.

I changed into a spare pair of shorts and climbed up the mast to fix the faulty blocks, greasing them and making a few small adjustments. Then I set about the task of washing his clobber as well as my own, his several times in an attempt to get rid of the oil. But each time they dried they remained stiff as a board. Fourth time around, while badly discoloured, I reckoned they could be worn. I rinsed the blood and sand off the headless bloke’s boots and set them out to dry. They’d be miles too big for the little bloke but along with the wallets and scraps of paper would be further evidence of the atrocity if ever we made landfall in Australia. I gathered up all the wallets and paper and dried them on deck, only giving them a cursory examination. They confirmed that their murdered owners were Australians off HMAS
Perth
. I would read them more carefully at a later time, I decided.

My final task was to create a waterproof wallet out of a small square cut from the hem of my stormweather oilskin. Into it I put the triangular envelope containing my precious butterfly, then placed the wallet within the infusion jar and screwed the lid back on. If we sank it would float to eventually turn up on some golden beach fringed with coconut palms where a beautiful young woman, very reminiscent of Anna, would find it and treasure it forever. My imagination was working overtime, no doubt triggered earlier by my evocation of the little bloke turning into soup, simmering away in a huge three-legged cannibal pot. It occurred to me that had we been marooned on some remote beach in New Guinea instead of Java, the threat I’d used on Kevin would not have been an idle one, cannibalism being still practised among some of the more remote tribes.

Around five o’clock, with the clouds now low and dark with moisture and the air almost overbearingly humid, I gathered everything from the deck and stowed it below. The little bloke lay bathed in a lather of sweat and I had some trouble waking him. Eventually I got him to sit up and made him drink. In all he must have consumed half a gallon of water since the morning and had yet to take a piss. I gave him two more Aspro tablets and he collapsed wearily back into the bunk and in moments he was out to it again.

I removed my shorts to prevent them from getting wet in the threatening tropical storm and returned to the deck, where I rigged a canvas sheet fashioned into a trough to catch drinking water. Moments later the deluge arrived and I sat with my back against the mast, my face raised to the sky, where I let it all come at me, the hard pellets of rain pelting into my face and skin in a vain physical attempt to wash from my heart and mind some of the ugliness of the day.

I was dead weary, having been up half the night, but knew that I had to make for the Sunda Strait and be clear of it by morning. I would be forced to remain at the tiller throughout the night, hoping that under cover of dark I could avoid the Jap warships. I felt fairly certain they would have entered the strait prior to mounting the land invasion of Java.

It was comparatively cool after the storm and so I went down below and climbed into a bunk and fell asleep, to wake an hour or so later in the gathering dusk. Kevin was still completely out to it and I thought to wake him and give him more water but decided against it. I had a fair bit to do and the last thing I needed was a newly personified and recalcitrant K. Judge ‘sonny-boying’ me while I got us under way. I examined the chart and using the dividers and parallel rulers I worked out my position and wrote down the various compass bearings I’d need in pencil, stuffing the note into the back pocket of my shorts. I made myself a thermos of strong black coffee, reheated the rice and a tin of fish, and ate, knowing it would be my last meal for a while. Even though it was not yet dark I lit the kero lamp in the binnacle to illuminate the compass, fearful that even this dim pinprick of light might be seen. As a final touch, knowing I’d have to stay put all night, I brought a waterproof cushion up from the cabin and placed it on the grating at the bottom of the cockpit; seated on it and leaning against the back of the cockpit with my arm resting on the tiller, I would be comfortable enough for the long watch that lay ahead.

The tide was beginning to recede so I went forward, ran out the jib on the bowsprit and hoisted the staysail, leaving the sheets loose as I was still sheltered by the mangrove trees on both sides of the creek. I’d hoist the mainsail once I was clear of the mangroves and the reef and when I was able to use the breeze that was just beginning to come off the shore.

The clouds hadn’t cleared after the five o’clock downpour and still hung low and dark on the horizon, threatening further rain. This was a good omen. It would make it much harder to see the
Vleermuis
with its dark hull and brown sails in the rain-dimmed evening light. Later the clouds would mask the moon, making it even more difficult to spot a tiny boat out at sea.

I lashed the tiller and using the sweep poled my way downstream, the outgoing tide making it comparatively light work. Once clear of the mangroves I sheeted in the foresails, whereupon
Vleermuis
started to move gently across the small lagoon and into the passage dividing the reef. Soon enough I started to feel the slight lifting to the sea that told me I was away. I hoisted the mainsail to catch the offshore breeze and unlashed the tiller. Glancing at the threatening clouds I pulled my oilskin coat on. Being wet ashore is one thing, but with a breeze hitting you out at sea it can become bloody cold and miserable.

Half an hour later it started to rain again, not a thunderstorm but a steady downpour. The sea was starting to rise, the boat coming off the tops of the waves, steeper now, the fall into the troughs deeper, the bow one moment poking into thin air and the next seemingly buried in a trough. I set my course to sail the ten nautical miles to the point where I calculated I would enter the strait.

Conditions such as these take a fair bit of sailing, as the boat has a tendency to move in three directions: up and down, forward and back, left and right, then twists around its own centre of gravity. In such conditions, except for adjusting the sails, I was stuck to the tiller for the duration. The good thing was that I’d have to practically ram a Jap ship to be discovered and so we were reasonably safe. If the little bloke was to wake up with all the movement (
Jesus, he’s almost certain to be seasick!
), there was precious little I could do to help him. I’d left a canvas waterbag hanging where he could reach it from his bunk. If he started to throw up at least he wouldn’t dehydrate. He was bollocky so thankfully I wouldn’t have to wash his clobber again. But it can become quite cool at sea in the tropics and I’d left a blanket hanging over the end of the bunk. Getting vomit off a blanket isn’t a pleasant task. But one thing was certain — whatever persona emerged after his long kip, if he was sick as a dog K. Judge wouldn’t be making too much trouble.

The cutter’s shallow draft meant I could safely hug the coast about one mile offshore. With the coastline still dimly visible I set the course west-nor’-west, estimating it would take me three hours, maybe four, to clear St Nicholas Point, when I would set a course south-west through the strait; the wide course would avoid the risk of running into Java or Sumatra. My chart had shown several islands within the strait, and in the murky darkness I would have to rely on the strong current to carry me around them. Well, that was the theory anyway.

I crossed the mouth of Bantem Bay where the weather had turned blustery with frequent squalls hiding the shore. But when one such squall abated, to my consternation I saw my first Japanese warships — two troop carriers with their lights on close to shore, unloading troops and supplies. The moon was only just up, and coming from behind a cloud it suddenly brightened the shore and I could see their landing craft pulled into the shallow water beyond the beach. To show lights at night could only mean they were confident that they’d routed the American and Australian naval forces. I was grateful when a few minutes later another rain squall arrived. If I could see them, particularly when the moon showed through the cloud, then they might be able to see me, although with all their activity directed towards the shore they were probably too preoccupied to worry about watching the open sea. Whatever, I now knew the Japs were well and truly present. It was going to be a long night at sea.

After crossing the bay and clearing the land I felt the water smooth; the current running at about six knots through the strait was beginning to take effect. Together with the land breeze the two elements would speed me through the danger zone, effectively doubling my speed across the water. Feeling slightly more confident, by the light of the kero lamp in the binnacle I adjusted the compass to read slightly south of west-sou’-west, about 240 degrees. The offshore breeze was now abeam and I felt the vessel heel slightly and begin to cut through the water. The long straight keel of her traditional hull design made
Vleermuis
very stable directionally. I could see the bow with a slight chuckle of white water, but beyond it was a void.

If I hadn’t been shitting myself, I should have been enjoying the fact that we were both in our preferred element. I loved to sail as much as I loved collecting butterflies. From the age of twelve, with the mission natives acting as my crew, I’d been responsible for sailing the clumsy old mission schooner along the coast of New Britain and over to New Guinea, both being an extension of my father’s parish. He wasn’t fond of sailing and had a tendency to become violently seasick in the slightest swell. The boat was yet another burden placed upon his stoic shoulders by an angry God.

To take the edge off my fear, I decided to begin in my mind to think of the splendid little sailing boat by her new name,
Madam Butterfly
. When and if Kevin eventually emerged from the cabin as his adult self, he would know her only by this name.

Vleermuis
, pronounced ‘Flay–mace’, was a mouthful anyway and calling the lovely little gaff-cutter after a flying bat was yet another indication of the Dutchman’s lack of sensitivity. Now every time I referred to her as
Madam Butterfly
, it would have the additional effect of recalling my darling Anna.

During the night I passed several dark shapes, their silhouettes too irregular in form to be ships, and I concluded they must be islands, the powerful current theory working and carrying me away from them. I kept myself preoccupied with holding my course, ensuring the sails were drawing well, but by 4 a.m. I was starting to feel pretty knackered. I realised I’d been running on strong black coffee and natural adrenalin all night, convinced that at any moment I would be spotted by a Japanese warship or patrol boat.

I had reached the stage where I was awake though not quite certain if I only imagined that I was, and began feeling the slight swell that might indicate I was heading into a wider area where the strait merged imperceptibly into the Indian Ocean. I decided to take the chance and swing into a course due south, the direction I would need to follow to take me away from the land. The wind began to pick up from over my shoulder from the north-west. Every mile I could make before dawn would be a mile further away from danger.

I thought about Anna and how it might have been had the Dutchman agreed to her sailing with me to Australia. She would have almost certainly accompanied me on the butterfly hunt and witnessed the slaughter on the beach and then had to cope with the resurrection of K. Judge. How would she have reacted? I hadn’t done too well myself. In addition I would have been panicking that we’d be picked up and that she’d fall into the hands of the Japanese. My already overwrought imagination started to make pictures of such a catastrophe and I forced myself to stop thinking. I had read about some of the things Japanese soldiers had done to Chinese women in Nanking.