CHAPTER ONE

Something was wrong.
There was no sign of life on the island’s pristine long white beach and no sound from the jungle beyond. Except for the tiny wavelets gently lapping against the shore, everything was absolutely still. The whole island seemed too silent to be real.
A ship’s boat splashed noisily into the sea. From his position at the rail of the brigantine Faithful, Captain Isaiah Cockburn looked on apprehensively as the oarsmen of the small craft dipped their blades into the crystal clear turquoise water of the anchorage.
Moments later a second boat, followed quickly by a third and fourth, pulled away from the vessel. When the small flotilla passed over the island’s fringing reef, the leading boat made directly for a coconut grove on the long white beach.
At Bougainville, Cockburn’s task had been easier. As soon as the Faithful arrived at the island, scores of friendly natives paddled out in canoes loaded with yams, fruit and shells. His crew had shown them brightly colored cloth, rolls of calico and knives, and indicated their willingness to trade.
When the eager islanders clambered aboard, crewmen led them down to the ship’s hold where all kinds of goods and trinkets were displayed for trade. Then the hold hatches were slammed shut and hastily locked, and yet another hapless group of Melanesians were destined to cut cane in Australia on the sugar plantations of the British Crown Colony of Queensland.
The captain drew a bulky silver timepiece from a waistcoat pocket and held it as close to his eyes as its restraining chain would allow. It was two minutes to noon and oppressively hot in the lee of the island which sheltered the Faithful from the persistent southeast trade wind blowing over the Solomon Sea.
Cockburn stretched his tall frame and cursed the heat. Even in July, the middle of the southern winter, the sun was merciless in the offshore islands of New Guinea. He put the timepiece away and raised a well polished brass telescope to an ageing but clear blue eye. Ever so slowly he scanned the entire length of the beach. Still there was no sign of life.
The captain shook his head. He had been expecting more.
Just three months earlier in April 1883, the self-governing colony of Queensland had assumed Imperial powers and annexed the eastern half of New Guinea, including these outlying islands, for the purpose of ensuring a plentiful supply of black labor for the colony.
The smell of stale sweat and molasses assailed Cockburn’s nostrils. Without taking his eyes off the ship boats, he knew Ned Higgins, the Queensland Government agent assigned to the Faithful, had finally awoken and found his way up to the deck.
Higgins joined Cockburn at the rail. He cleared his throat noisily, then lazily spat what he had gathered over the side of the ship.
Cockburn tolerated the repugnant drunk aboard his otherwise tightly run ship only because of the certainty of Higgins turning a blind eye to breaches of the regulations supposedly governing the labor trade, providing his appetite for rum and women was suitably satisfied.
Higgins pulled a flask from his coat pocket. He took a long swallow, then wiped his mouth with a dirty hand.
‘You’ll be sure to take aboard a Mary for me, won’t you Isaiah?’ The agent’s face broke into a near toothless grin. ‘Some say the Kanakas of these islands are the best looking of all the islanders of the Solomon Sea. There are no blue-blacks here Captain, like the savages of Bougainville. These people, I am told, are the color of creamed coffee and some of the females are uncommonly handsome.’
Cockburn turned an unappreciative eye to the little agent beside him. Higgins had neither washed nor shaved in the four days which had passed since the Faithful left Bougainville with three quarters of her licensed quota of living cargo—seventy five terrified and now halfstarved islanders, packed like sardines below decks in the brigantine’s stinking coal-black holds.
‘Yes Ned,’ Cockburn growled. ‘We’ll get you a Mary if we can, but as you can see, it looks as if this island is deserted.’
‘May I Captain?’ Higgins held out a bony hand.
Cockburn handed him the telescope. Higgins screwed up his ferret-like face and peered through the glass.
The boats were almost at the shore now. Higgins focused the lens on the first boat just as it reached the island. He watched as two figures in flowing robes and wide-brimmed hats stepped over the gunwales onto the sand. He laughed out loud ‘Got Bates the recruiter and Geddes the interpreter in missionary frocks eh! Isaiah? he said. ‘It’s an old trick but it usually works well when the savages are afraid to show themselves.’
*
Kiri crouched low in the undergrowth just a few yards behind the palm trees lining the beach and watched the white men pull their boats up onto the sand. The villagers had first seen the brigantine at dawn when she appeared on the horizon to the south. They had ample time to plan for the arrival of the ship while she nosed her way slowly up the shore-line, carefully avoiding the profusion of coral heads close in to the island.
Eventually the ship had anchored off a rocky point close to a deep channel between their island and a smaller neighboring island. Since then Kiri had just watched and waited. She began to tremble. It hadn’t been long since a similar ship had visited her island. The young men who had paddled out to greet it had never returned, and their families had wept when their empty canoes were washed up on the beach.
A parrot screeched in the bush behind the palms. It was the signal from her father, the village head-man. Kiri rose to her feet and walked out onto the sand. She was a sight to behold. She was naked, which was the way of all her people, but her sheer beauty and loveliness had always set her apart from even the most attractive of the other island girls. Her features were exquisite, almost regal in their perfection, and her skin was a rich golden brown, smooth and unblemished.
As she walked, she raised her arms and ran her fingers through her hair, smiling provocatively at the wide-eyed, unkempt group of ruffians now assembled on the beach. She stopped about twenty yards from where they stood and their eyes feasted on her tantalizing supple brown body, the upward sweep of her firm young breasts, and the promise of delight in the darkness between her thighs.
Two of the men who Kiri took to be head-men, had their bodies completely covered with long flowing robes and wore wide-brimmed hats over their heads. Kiri had seen similarly dressed men come peacefully to the islands in the past. Some had even stayed for periods of time on the island and tried to teach the islanders the ways of their white God. But such men had never taken any islanders away in their giant canoes.
‘Bless you my child.’
The words were spoken by one of the men in robes in a tongue Kiri didn’t understand.He held out his arms and walked towards her.
The parrot screeched again and Kiri turned and ran down the beach. As she ran she looked behind her. The two men dressed as missionaries were in hot pursuit with their skirts raised up to their waists. Underneath their habits they wore sea-boots and had long barreled American revolvers stuck into wide seamen’s belts. The rest of the men were close behind, laughing and shouting, clearly enjoying the chase.
Nearly a hundred yards down the beach Kiri was still well ahead of her pursuers who were making heavy going in the loose sand above the tide mark. She deliberately slowed, then turned and ran through the palm trees into a clearing where several upturned canoes lay in the sand. Then she stopped and waited.
It was a few moments before Tom Geddes, the Faithful’s interpreter, who in truth had a scant knowledge of only a handful of the hundreds of languages of Melanesia, came panting into the clearing. During the chase he had cast off his long grey habit in the interest of speed.
When he saw Kiri standing still and smiling again, his face broke into a wide grin. He knew he had won the race and he moved toward her, anxious to collect the prize.
The spear came from nowhere. It passed clear through Geddes’ sweaty neck just as the rest of the runners burst into the clearing. Geddes drew his pistol an instant before a second shaft pierced his heart, and the weapon discharged harmlessly into the air as he dropped stone-dead to the ground.
In the mayhem that followed, some thirty or forty howling islanders, all strongly built young men, leapt from the bushes throwing spears and swinging clubs. Many found their mark before the surprised intruders were able to defend themselves. But when the sailors drew their pistols, they fired rapidly and indiscriminately, killing and wounding islanders with almost every shot.
Kiri had hidden behind the canoes the moment the first spear had been thrown. She heard a sound behind her. She spun around and saw Bates the recruiter, also seeking shelter from the melee. He still wore his missionary’s habit and blood poured from a gash in his forehead. He lunged at Kiri and smashed his pistol across her face, then drew her body in front of his own as a human shield.
Two islanders bounded toward him. Bates shot them both at point blank range, then screamed at the top of his voice:
‘To the boats lads, before they kill and eat us all.’
*
‘Make sail.’
The crew of the Faithful jumped to it when Clancy the mate roared the command. Mainmast halyards raced through clattering blocks as canvas fell from the forward yards.
Isaiah Cockburn’s eyes squinted into the sun as he peered aloft to assess the strength of the wind. The Union Jack fluttered lazily from the forward masthead. On the mizzen-mast, a catspaw caught the flag of the Faithful’s owner, the Stonehouse Shipping Company. The small gust caused the pennant to stream out momentarily displaying the company’s emblem: a medieval greystone tower emblazoned with the letter S, in red ,set against a solid black background.
Cockburn cursed the light air and moved to the rail. He raised his telescope. Just two boats were returning to the brigantine. Both were fighting a running battle with war-canoes which had put out from the shore after them.
He counted four men and a Mary in one boat, and five men in the other, seven short of the sixteen who had gone ashore. Cockburn waited until the boats had passed over the reef, then signaled to the mate.
Clancy’s voice roared again: ‘Weigh anchor.’
Crewmen bounded to the capstan. It spun around freely at first, then creaked and groaned in protest when the slack came out of the hawser. Strong backs bent to the task and the anchor broke free just as the boats bumped against the ship’s hull.
As the Faithful began to make way, the survivors of the landing party scrambled from the boats under a hail of spears and frantically climbed up rope webbing draped over the side of the ship. Up on deck, Cockburn, Clancy and Higgins leaned over the rail and fired revolvers at the war-canoes in the water below.
Halfway up the rope webbing Kiri tried to jump into the sea. Bates angrily slammed her head hard into the side of the ship, then dragged her unconscious body by the hair up behind him onto the deck.
Crewmen hastily sheeted home the brigantine’s sails and gradually the Faithful left the island of Kiriwina behind her.