Nothing Lasts Forever Page 3

  Mel managed to get some sort of organization into the procedure, and ended the chaos and shoving with soothing words and encouraged the natives to form near orderly queues. Eventually, Mel was allowed a small concession for his co-operation. There was no point fighting a war he’d never win, Mel decided. All he could do was try to better his conditions, if he could. And perhaps save a few lives in the process.

  After two long agonizing weeks, Captain Knowles sent two crewmen to escort Mel topside. Mel was at first convinced that he was to be thrown overboard, and found he could barely make his shaking legs support him. After weeks with little food, he was dismayed with his weakness. When he was bought before the formidable Captain Knowles on the rear deck, he glanced around with confusion. There was no land in sight. How would he know in which direction to swim when the inevitable happened?

  Captain Knowles was not a compassionate man; he was ruled by greed. This could very well be his last voyage to procure kanakas for the cane fields, as the government was making it more and more difficult. Such a shame; it had proved to be a very lucrative business if kept under wraps. The authorities tried to post overseers on the legal ships to make sure the natives were well fed and treated fairly. These natives were called indentured workers and earned a pittance in wages under the government rule. That cut into profits significantly. So it had to be done illegally. More secrecy was required now; the government had banned it completely. A permanent lookout had to be posted in the crows-nest to watch for patrol vessels and avoid confrontation with navy vessels.

  To Captain Knowles, the islanders were a primitive race, deserving no more consideration than the lowest of animals. However, this primitive race had become wary of the slave ships; some islanders had actually slaughtered the sailors when they tried to apprehend them. He recalled his trip before this, when the only way of capture was to lure the natives in their outriggers alongside the ship, drop pig iron into their canoes to hole them, then pull the waterlogged natives out of the sea in huge fishing nets, to throw them into the hold.

  On that fateful voyage the cargo was more aggressive than usual and fought constantly, resulting in injuries and broken limbs. There was no sale for injured islanders, so fifty percent of the ill gotten slaves had to be thrown overboard, cutting his profits significantly. He needed a high profit on this voyage to make up for the loss, and when he overheard some of the crew talking about one of the slaves having some control over the islanders, and encouraging peaceful behavior, he thought immediately of the king’s son from Samoa. He was undoubtedly a born leader, trained for it all his life. It was a great advantage having a peacemaker down there, and he needed this peacemaker’s influence to guarantee a good number of survivors.

  He felt no remorse telling those lies to procure the twenty young Samoans. They represented money in the bank. That was what these voyagers were all about, after all: money.

  Mel listened to the soft-spoken Captain as he conveyed his message through the translator, although Mel understood the Captain better than the translator.

  “In appreciation of your influence with our native passengers, I will allow you daytime rights to the decks. It is a rare privilege, never been granted before. But never has a native been as co-operative as you. I am assuming you may be trusted, so no monkey business, hear? Any sign of trouble from you and you will be thrown back into the hold with the others and there you will stay. Any sign of disrespect, back you go. You are to stay on the lower central deck and keep out of the way of the crew. Do you understand? In return I expect your continued co-operation in controlling the islanders.”

  Mel kept his eyes down. Native passengers? Who was he kidding? He kept a blank expression on his face as he listened, but found himself clenching his fists as he fought the rage. Did this man have any idea of the misery suffered by those ‘passengers’ trapped below? Did he even care?

  Mel had already surmised that the Captain wanted as many ‘native passengers’ as possible to survive this horrific trip across the ocean. Maybe he had a quota to fill.

  Mel spent much of his first day on deck familiarizing himself with his new surrounds. He had been confined to an area just forward of the second mast, the lower central deck. He decided to make the cargo hatch his place, knowing the horrors below him. At the bow a raised deck formed the roof of the crew’s quarters. Only when the ship dipped her bow with the swells could Mel see the empty horizon. Behind him a raised section formed the galley and to the rear of that a higher deck over the officer’s quarters. On that deck was the huge wooden wheel which steered the ship. This area was banned to him.

  What the captain and crew didn’t realize was Mel’s fluency with English, and he listened intently to many on-deck conversations while holding a blank look on his face. They didn’t need to know that he understood them, and they took no notice, after a time, of the handsome young native sitting cross-legged on the deck. The crew was under fear of death if they approached him.

  When Mel was returned to his cage each evening, he feigned exhaustion, as though he had been toiling all day. Once he settled on his splintered shelf which was his bed and closed his eyes, his companions gave up questioning him.

  At night in his putrid prison down below, Mel would sift through all he had heard through the day, discard trivia, and think hard on important facts.

  Fact 1:

  Their future in the land called Australia would not be as they had been told. They were destined to be slaves.

  Fact 2:

  There would be no return to their homeland. ‘Kanakas’ as they were referred to by the crew, lived out their lives in this new land as beasts of burden, and probably worked themselves into an early grave.

  Fact 3:

  There were black natives in this new land who had lived there for many thousands of years, and they were not hospitable to the intruding Pacific Islanders. These natives probably thought the new brown- skinned arrivals were after more of their tribal lands.

  Fact 4:

  Black birding, as the acquisition of natives was called by the crew, had been going on for some fifty-odd years. It was an illegal practice and the Australian government had recently taken a harder stand to abolish it. Because it was such a lucrative profession, however, many captains still ran risks to increase their wealth. The demand was always there with good payment for young, healthy Pacific Island Kanakas who would see no wages; no promised riches.

  Through the long nights, Mel’s mind would escape the horror by thinking of home, of treks through the prolific forests, of endless fishing along the golden shores, of his father’s proud stance, of his mother’s face, peaceful and serene.

  The dark putrid nights were horrific. Most of the captives were ill, suffering digestive problems from the food they were expected to eat. The slop delivered to them once a day in buckets was weevil infested rice boiled up with meat drippings and vegetable peelings, a far cry from their island diet of tropical fruit and vegetables with bountiful seafood. The stench of vomit and excrement was more than Mel could bear at times. Then he’d remember his Mother’s words as he’d left her: “Nothing lasts forever.” He had to believe in that with a passion; the alternative was to give up, and that was against all he had learned in his short life. He needed his days on deck in the fresh air to strengthen his will to survive another night in this hell-hole. He often found it increasingly difficult to control the inner turmoil fuelled by his rage. It took a lot of will-power to hold the blank expression on his face, and appear other than furious.

  Some nights, with sleep eluding him, he’d shed many tears of frustration. He was beyond feeling ashamed of tears; at least they offered some sort of release. He accepted with sadness that he would never walk Samoan shores again, and he’d feel the rage building. He had to control
that rage…he knew he would gain nothing by giving in to this persistent anger. Being placid and cooperative had gained him privileges which just might get him through this…the worst time of his life. He’d see how far it would take him.

  From the first day of his reprieve on deck, he noted the repetition of chores the crew engaged in daily. His mind needed something to concentrate on, and it took the boredom away for a while. The constant adjusting of the massive sails left him in confusion, as the changes in wind direction often left them flapping in useless tangles. The most interesting regular event was the appearance of a little Chinaman with a pig-tail hanging down his back. He emerged on deck every day in the late afternoon to empty his bucket of scraps from the galley over the side of the ship. Mel quickly assumed he was the ship’s cook.

  The Chinaman always paused to look Mel over before he went back below. Was it just interest or sympathy he read in those strange slanted eyes? This procedure continued for almost a week and Mel wondered irritably what the cook found so interesting. But he dared not confront the little man, to have it seen as an act of animosity. He didn’t want to lose his privilege of deck time. To Mel’s surprise, one afternoon the Chinaman deliberately walked close to where Mel sat on the deck. Without breaking pace, the little man dropped a package in Mel’s lap and continued on his way.

  Mel bolted upright, thinking it was an act of aggression, and then smelt the alluring odor of cooked meat. Sinking back down to his out of the way spot, Mel studied the package. It was a square of old toweling, almost threadbare, with the corners pulled up and knotted at the top. Looking around quickly to make sure no-one could see, Mel untied the cloth to reveal a slab of roast pork and a roast potato.

  With no thought other than the pure joy of having real food in his hands, Mel began to stuff great amounts of the food into his mouth. All too soon it was gone. His guilt was only momentary. How far would that small morsel have gone if he had taken it below? No, better not to think of that, he admonished himself. The subsequent rioting to get some would have had severe consequences for the hungry natives, he was sure.

  The ritual with the friendly little Chinaman continued. Every afternoon a morsel would drop into Mel’s lap; sometimes a slab of damper fried in bacon fat, a sausage with a boiled swede, and now and then an apple, spotted and wrinkled with age, but delicious none-the-less. Mel appreciated whatever the Chinaman gave him, and realised it was done with some risk, so made no effort to draw attention to the exchange. All he could offer was a wide smile, received and returned promptly.

  This new alliance put a little pleasure in his otherwise sad life. Three natives died in the third week. Word was they died of sea-sickness. They were unceremoniously dumped over the side of the ship, and Mel felt his distress turning again to consuming rage which he had to once again fight to control. Would the spirits of these unfortunates find their way home from out here in the middle of the ocean? He felt an overwhelming sadness at the thought.

  They had been at sea for more than a month, by Mel’s reckoning, when the storm hit. The wind had been steady but building and Mel was on deck in the early morning light when he noticed that the activities of the crew were different from other mornings. He had the feeling he wasn’t supposed to be there but the sailor given the job to release Mel for his deck time hadn’t been told any different.

  The ship was rolling and tossing as large, dark waves lifted and dropped the hull with force. Some of the topmost sails were furled; others were left loosely flapping, but giving some momentum to the ship. The sailors were worried about being ‘pooped’, whatever that meant. Everything possible was removed from the deck, and the huge wheel on the aft deck had ropes nearby for an emergency. Two men worked at the wheel to keep the clipper bow first into the waves. All this was done with haste and a lot of shouting.

  From what Mel had overheard from the crew, if the storm was really bad the order could be given to throw the ‘passengers’ from below overboard. Opinion was that the ship was overloaded, and more freeboard could make all the difference. Mel felt fear as he’d never felt before.

  As most of the crew scuttled below, some yelled for Mel to follow, but he didn’t want to face all that misery down there. He stayed. The few crewmen left on deck were prepared for heavy work with the sails.

  Things got progressively worse, and by mid- morning Mel was fighting for survival. There had been a change of crew to ensure those on deck duty were fresh and ready to cope with the worst. The wind howled through ropes and masts, and combining with the clatter of wind-blown fastening, made a disturbing symphony of sounds, blending eerily with the roar and hiss of the spray on the deck. The leaden sky promised only worse to come.

  Riding the rise and fall of the ship in the storm ravaged sea, Mel crouched on the cover of the cargo hold, his fingers under the edge of the cover, his toes crammed into the weathered cracks of the wooden hold cover, hanging on for grim death. He had been the village champion at climbing coconut trees, and thankfully his toes and fingers were nimble and strong. Now and then he had to shake his head after a rogue wave unloaded its bulk on top of him. He knew he shouldn’t be there; it was his stubbornness that had made him stay on deck, and now he wondered why it had seemed so damned important. Pretty foolhardy, he realised, and too risky now to release his hold and try to retreat.

  He turned his head once to see a huge green wave roll over the stern as the ship stalled in a trough, the men at the wheel almost dislodged by the force of it. Just for a minute it seemed the whole ship was underwater, with only the two masts and soggy sails above the surface. Mel pressed hard against the cover and held on tight, holding his breath. He gasped for air as the ship threw itself out of the hold of the huge wave which had tried to consume it.

  Now and then the ship was trapped in a trough, and the lower sails lost wind, only to snap back with a vicious crack as the bow rose to the next wave and the wind filled them again. Mel wondered how the masts still stood under such force.

  The angry sea tried repeatedly to claim the ship as another trophy for Davy Jones’ locker, but she battled on bravely, tossing the intrusive waves from her deck with mighty bucking motions which threatened to dislodge Mel again and again from his precarious perch.

  Mel smiled a tight little smile with no mirth as he crouched and hung on for dear life. When under pressure his mind escaped to memories of home. Samoa was an island of warriors…they’d fought wars as far back as anyone could remember, and as a warrior he’d fight now to survive this storm, and the difficult times he was sure lay ahead of him as seen in strange visions that constantly came to him in flashes. He sometimes felt anger for his beloved father, but realised Metafet had been deeply concerned for Mel’s safety and felt it his duty to guarantee a future for the young men from his village by sending them away for a time from his consuming fear of devastation from the war ships. But sending them to what?

  In the late afternoon, the wind had dropped enough for the full crew to venture back on deck to adjust the sails. The sea was abating…the worst was over, and Mel unwound his stiff limbs to limp below, fingertips and toes bleeding, just in time for the bucket of slops. This had to be eaten using hands to dip and deliver to the mouth. He found it to be a most undignified way to eat, but one had to survive.

  The following morning found the ship in sight of land. Mel squatted on deck, and listened to the crew talking. They were heading for a river called Logan, where surrounding flats once planted in cotton, were now planted with sugar cane.

  Mel watched as the ship turned towards thick mangroves growing on the shore-line. They had navigated around and between several islands the sailors referred to as Morton Island and Stradbroke Island. His eyes grew large as he saw they were dangerously close to a point of land. One sailor took up position on the bow throwing a weighted and regularly knotted rope into the water, reading off the depth in fathoms. Mel didn’t understand fathoms, but from what he overheard this river e
ntry was silting up and extra care needed to be taken.

  On turning right (starboard, as the sailors said) Mel breathed a sigh of relief as the river opened up ahead. He stood to get a better view as mangroves gave way to sugar cane as far as the eye could see. The land was flat, with hazy, rugged blue mountains in the far distance.

  Not far up river a landing dock was in readiness for their arrival. The dimensions of the poles and timbers in the wharf were mind boggling to Mel. As a number of Pacific Islanders, including the twenty Samoans, were prodded across the deck to disembark, Mel noted the Chinese cook standing back from the gangplank. Mel pretended to stumble so he could grasp the cook’s arm and give him a grateful squeeze. The stolen food had given him a new strength to face what lay ahead. The little Chinaman smiled and nodded discretely.

  Once ashore the Kanakas were herded into a huge timber shed. There was a sturdy padlock on the only door. With barely room for all of them to lie to sleep at the same time, Mel found their conditions near unbearable in the afternoon heat. There was little ventilation in the shed allowing the stench to brew into an all- encompassing pall. He sadly thought of his woven mat and sash. They were long gone, hosed out with the filth. There was nothing but memories now.

  “Why do they treat us like animals?” one youth muttered, his face grim with bottled-up anger. There was much keening and moaning from the angry Kanakas. Their faces were drawn and gaunt, their bodies almost skeletal in their half-starved state.

  Mel had never told his fellow captives what he had overheard while on the deck of the ship. Most of them were young and highly strung, already bursting with outrage, and Mel knew they could be hot-headed, with no thought of the consequences. He feared for their safety if they tried to rebel.