Sea of Mutiny by Ken Catran

Author:Ken Catran [Ken Catran]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
ISBN: 9781775530879
Publisher: Penguin Random House New Zealand
Published: 2012-05-20T16:00:00+00:00

Sometimes you know a storm is coming by the simplest and most innocent of signs: a trace of cloud on the horizon, a slight change in colour of movement on the ocean; even how the sun rises or sets. They are so slight as to almost not be noticed, but still give clear warning that a violent tempest will break.

Even in that first week there were signs we might have seen — had we been looking for them. One came to me on that second day.

We had finished, collected our tools and tallied them carefully; the biggest axe or mattock could vanish miraculously, just as my boot buckles did. We began walking back to the beach. Tom Ellison was beside me and knuckled his forehead to me.

‘Yes, Ellison?’

He was a little older than me, always cheerful, with long brown hair always slipping into his eyes. It was impossible not to like him, as much as able seamen and officers can know each other.

‘Sir, why do these people like us so much? I mean, even Quintal and Muspratt, who will never be the most handsome men to grace this planet.’

I grinned at how he lowered his voice when saying this. Handsome Muspratt and Quintal were not, but quick-tempered and heavy-fisted they were.

‘I believe they find our skin colour attractive. I think light-skinned people are bound up in their beliefs.’

Smith had overheard this. ‘Ah, they’ll turn cartwheels for beads or a farthing glass mirror — ’tis our white man’s magic.’

‘Shut up, Smith,’ I snapped. There was nothing magic about him.

Nelson had overheard and dropped in beside us. ‘’Tis not any magic, Tom,’ he said. ‘They watch us and they know us, so never take their friendship for granted.’

Ellison nodded, I think not quite understanding what Nelson was saying. He looked around and reached out to pluck a huge yellow flower from a bush.

‘A fine place to live, with food on the trees and people so hospitable,’ he said. ‘Aye, a sailor could not wish heaven better than these islands. I could live here all my days.’

It was a young man’s chatter and I ignored him. But I think that day the seed was sown, in his mind and others’; and in the rich, dark soil of Tahiti that seed would grow quickly.

On the beach, the thick blue twilight was gathering as we loaded our cargo into the cutter. There was firelight through the trees and the chanting of women as they prepared the evening meal.

We scrambled aboard the cutter and all were soaked by a sudden heavy surf. But what were wet clothes when long months lay ahead in such a paradise?

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