baiting. 'You could dredge them up, but it wouldn't be an economic proposition – it would just amount to pouring money into the sea. By the way, I haven't mentioned this to the boss. It would only cause alarm and despondency, and it might never happen.'
'I won't tell him,' he promised.
But I did seek out Campbell for another reason, and found him on deck in his favourite spot reading a book. We chatted for a few minutes about the ship and the weather, and then I said, 'Is it true what Clare said – that you're a crack shot?'
'I'm not too bad,' he said modestly if a little complacently.
'I'd like to learn how to shoot. I didn't get off a shot back there at Tanakabu, and those bastards were popping off all over the show.'
He grinned. 'What happened?'
'I think I forgot to release the safety catch.'
'I thought that might be it,' he said. 'It's obvious you don't know much about the game.'
'I don't know anything,' I said positively.
'Good. Then you won't have any bad habits to get rid of. Stick around. I'll get the pistols.'
He came back with four guns and laid them on deck. Three I'd seen and one which was new to me, but a twin of the one I'd handled. I didn't ask him where it had been hidden. He said, 'I didn't know what kind of trouble we'd be running into, so I took out insurance and brought along these two. 38s for you and Geordie.'
'What about yours?'
'Oh, I like this, the. 22. They're for me and Clare – she's a pretty good shot, if in need of practice.'
'I've always thought that a. 22 was useless against a man,' I said.
'You're like the cops. They always think you can't use anything but a. 38 or bigger,' said Campbell contemptuously. 'Look at it this way – who are the men who habitually use handguns?'
I thought about it. 'The police, the army, criminals and hobbyists – like yourself.'
'Right. Now, an army officer doesn't get much time for practice, nor the wartime officer – so they give him the biggest gun he can hold, one that packs a hell of a wallop – a. 45. With that gun he doesn't have to be a dead shot. If he only wings his man, that man is knocked flat on his back.'
Campbell picked up a. 38. 'Now the police get more practice and they're usually issued with, or equip themselves with, these. A nice handy gun that will fit inconspicuously into a holster out of sight, but because of that the barrel's too short, resulting in some loss of accuracy. You've got to have a lot of practice to be good with one of these.'
He exchanged it for a. 22. 'With this you have definitely got to be a good shot; the bullet is small and hasn't any inherent stopping power, so you have to be able to put it in the right place. But the gun is deadly accurate – this one is, at any rate. If you meet up with a man who habitually packs a. 22 steer clear of him, especially if he's filed away the front sight, because that means he's a snapshooter – a natural shot.'
I said, 'What's the range of these guns?'
'Oh, they've all got a hell of a range, but that's not the point. What counts is the accurate range, and with any hand gun it's not very much. A guy who is an average shot will stop a man at ten yards with the. 38. A crack shot will stop his man at twenty yards. And I'm not talking about target practice on the range – I'm talking about action where the other guy is shooting back.'
He waved the long-barrelled. 22. 'With this gun I'll kill a man at thirty yards – maybe a bit further.'
I asked curiously, 'You once said you had killed. Was it with this?'
'Yes, in South America once. The jungle Indians don't like trespassers.'
He said no more about it, and I let it lie.
So he began to teach me how to shoot. He started with the basic principles, stripping the guns and explaining the action. Then he showed me how to stand, and eventually how to hold a gun.
'I'm not going to waste time with you on the classic stance,' he said. 'That's for the police and championship target boys. If you tried you'd be filled full of holes before you sighted on your man. I want you to start with snapshooting. It's something you have or you haven't – let's see if you've got it. Point your finger at the mast.'
I did so and he followed the line of direction. 'Not bad. If your finger had been a gun barrel – a steady one – you'd have made a hole in the mast just a little off centre. Do it again.'
So I did it again – and again – and again. Then he gave me a. 38. 'Now do it.'
I pointed the gun at the mast and he shook his head. 'You'd miss by a foot. Put your forefinger alongside the barrel and do it again.'
I pointed the gun again with better results. 'You won't have your finger there when you shoot,' he said. 'It might be cut off by the action. But I want you to be able to point that barrel just like you point your finger.'
He drilled me for four hours every day on the voyage to Tonga. The rest of the crew crowded around at first, all asking for lessons, but Campbell declined, saying that one pupil at a time was his limit and that in any case there were no spar. guns. Geordie endorsed this. Those of the crew who did have guns did a little target practice but no one had much ammunition to spare and soon they left us to get on with it.
I had to learn how to point the gun when standing, sitting lying down and lastly, after a sudden turn. Then he concentrated on the trigger finger, making me squeeze the trigger gently without a jerk. He filed the sear of the trigger until:: clicked at a very slight pressure and then made me practice. draw, snapping off the safety catch, pointing the gun and squeezing the trigger all in one flowing motion.
On the third day I fired my first shot.
Campbell set up a rough target in the bows and when I stood near the foremast and squeezed that trigger I was certain that I had missed. But he led me to the target and pointed to a hole only two inches off centre. 'You'd make a pretty fair ten yard man,' he said. 'Give me another year or two and I'll make a good shot out of you.'
He took his. 22 and, standing at the same distance, loosed off six shots in as many seconds. 'Now look at the target. he said.
He had put a neat circle of small holes round the larger one made by my bullet. 'Give me time and you'll be able to do that,' he said in reply to my honest praise.
'I doubt if we'll have time. Not if I run up against Kane and company in the near future.'
'You think we will? The Suarez-Navarro ship is still up in Rabaul as far as I know.'
'I don't think it will stay there,' I said. They'll be on out trail.'
Campbell suddenly seemed depressed. 'How do we know it's the right trail? We're only going on a wild hunch – a hunch that a couple of doodled drawings do mean something.'
He turned and went below, the pistols dangling heavily in his hands.* 2*
We raised the island of Tongatapu on the morning of the sixth day out of Papeete. Nuku'alofa, the southern port of entry for the Tongan group, is on the north side of the island, so Geordie changed the heading of Esmerelda. He said to me, There's a paragraph in the Pilot that says you have to keep a sharp lookout for undersea volcanic activity and new shoals in these waters.'
I smiled. 'Sounds good from my point of view.'
'Not so good from mine. I have to skipper this ship.'
But we entered the anchorage without sighting anything unusual, tied up and settled down to wait for the port officials. Nuku'alofa was a typical Pacific island town; the wooden houses with their galvanized iron roofs forever frozen in a late-Victorian matrix. At one time it had looked as though Nuku'alofa was going to be the chief trading port and coaling station of the Western Pacific; but Suva, in the Fiji Islands, eventually came out on top, possibly for no more profound reason than that it was an easier name to pronounce. At any rate, Nuku'alofa lost its chance and relapsed into a timeless trance.
Once free to go ashore Campbell headed for the post office as usual. I went off with the two girls who were going to book in at an hotel. Clare announced that she was tired of salt water showers. 'My hair's in a mess and I can't get the salt out. It needs cutting,' she said. 'I want fresh water and luxury for a while.'
I said thoughtfully, 'It looks as though we may be based on Nuku'alofa for some time. Maybe I'd better do the same – get a room for me and see if Geordie wants one. A ship's all right if you can get off it once in a while.'
Paula felt happier here too, with Hadley a remote risk and nobody else around whom she knew either. It was a lot more relaxing for all of us than our second visit to Papeete. We arrived at the hotel and Clare said, 'My God, look at all that gingerbread!' It was a museum piece sprouting galvanized iron turrets and cupolas in the most unlikely places; inside it was pleasantly cool and dark with big electric fans lazily circulating the air.
