“Do you know where we are?” Domenica inquired.
Henry shook his head. “Yumitupela lus,” he said simply. “Lus bilong sno” (You and I are lost. We are lost in this fog. Sno is fog in Neo-Melanesian Pidgin. There is no word for snow, unless, possibly, it is fog).
Domenica had never panicked in all her years of anthropological fieldwork. She had remained calm when she had been obliged to spend four days in an ice shelter with some hospitable Inuit in the North-West Territories of Canada before weather conditions had allowed help to arrive from Fort Smith. That had been an interesting time, and she had learned a great deal about local counting rhymes and fishing lore. Then, in the New Guinea Highlands, she had been resolute in the face of a demand from some of her hosts that she be sold – for an undisclosed sum, and purpose – to a neighbouring group to whom some ancient debt was payable. Reason – and market forces – had prevailed in that case and the matter had been settled. But even when it looked as if the decision would go the other way, Domenica had been digni-fied and detached. “If I were ever to be sold,” she told herself,
“then I would prefer to be sold at Jenners.”
Now, drifting in that silent boat with the retired pirate, Henry, she was determined that she would remain cool and collected; not that there was much point in doing anything else. Henry, it seemed, had no idea of where they were, and the persistence of the fog meant that they were unsure of the location of the sun, or of land, or of anything for that matter, apart from the water, which was all about them.
She tried to work out how far they were from the coast. The engine on Henry’s boat was not a large one, and they could not have been making much more than four knots. If they had been travelling for half an hour, then that suggested that they could not be more than a mile or two from land, assuming that they 330
had been heading on a course directly out to sea. It was quite possible, though, that they had been following the coast and that at any moment the fog would lift and they would see mangrove within yards. But then there were currents to be taken into account, and they might, in reality, be miles out by now, out in the Malacca Straits and directly in the course of some great behemoth of a Taiwanese tanker. That would be a sad way to go; crushed beneath the bows of the oil industry – tiny, human, helpless.
Domenica sat back and closed her eyes. She had decided that she would simply wait it out and think while she was doing so.
And there was a great deal to think about. Had she made the right decision as to the distribution of her estate after her death?
The lawyers at Turcan Connell would look after that very well
– she was confident of that – but had she left Miss Paul adequate instructions about what would happen to her library of anthropological books and papers? And she could not remember whether she had been specific enough about the conditions she had attached to the legacy to Angus Lordie. That would require attention if she survived.
But of course I shall survive, she told herself. Nobody succumbs this close to the coast, particularly in busy waters like these. At any moment we shall hear a boat and a friendly pair of hands will indicate where safety lies. At any moment . . .
“Bot,” said Henry suddenly, cupping a hand to his ear. “Bot bilong roscol bilong boscru. Closap.”
Domenica opened her eyes quickly. Henry had heard the pirate boats. She strained to listen. From somewhere close by came the sound of a couple of engines, their droning notes weaving in and out of another, as if in mechanical dance. She looked at Henry. He had now started their own engine, but was keeping the throttle low, to mask the sound, she assumed.
Suddenly, at the very edge of their vision through the fog, they saw a dark shape glide by. A few seconds later, there was another glimpse of the outline of a boat, and then nothing.
Henry swung the prow of their boat round and began to follow. Domenica was not sure about this. Was it a good idea,
she wondered, to set off in pursuit of the pirate boats in weather like this? If the pirates did find prey in such conditions, then would there be anything to observe, or would there just be the sound of shouts and, she hoped not, shots? That would hardly give her an insight into pirate activities. It was a basic rule of anthropological observation that one had to be able actually to see something.
Now that Henry had seen the pirate boats, he seemed to have regained his confidence. Domenica looked at him inquiringly, but he simply waved a hand in the air. So she sat back and, as she had done from the beginning of this extraordinary trip, remained calm.
They had travelled for about twenty minutes before the fog began to lift. Domenica peered about her and was astonished to discover that they were very close to the coast and were coming up to a town of some sort. Now they could make out the two pirate boats, some distance ahead, and they were cruising slowly up to a jetty beside a large warehouse.
Henry cut the motor of his boat and waited. The pirate boats had now nosed into the jetty and had been secured by their occupants. Then the pirates clambered out and began to walk into the warehouse. One of the men coughed, and the sound reached Henry and Domenica across the water.
“Roscol bilong boscru smok smok,” whispered Henry.
Domenica nodded her agreement. From what she had seen in the village, the pirates were all heavy smokers.
When the last of the pirates had entered the warehouse, Henry started his engine again and they began to inch towards the other side of the jetty. Domenica watched carefully. This was extremely exciting, and she could already imagine her telling this story to Angus Lordie or James Holloway, or Dilly Emslie
– to any of her Edinburgh friends, in fact.
“There I was,” she would say. “There I was with my good friend Henry, creeping up the jetty to peek through the windows of the pirate warehouse. What would I see within? Chests of booty? Wretched captives tied and gagged by these ruffians?
Things that can hardly be described . . . ?”
