any other night. Seven of them, with glimmering eyes and steady legs, had
capped a day of Scotch with swivel-sticked cocktails and sat down to
dinner. Jacketed, trousered, and shod, they were: Jerry McMurtrey, the
manager; Eddy Little and Jack Andrews, clerks; Captain Stapler, of the
recruiting ketch Merry; Darby Shryleton, planter from Tito-Ito; Peter Gee,
a half-caste Chinese pearl-buyer who ranged from Ceylon to the
Paumotus, and Alfred Deacon, a visitor who had stopped off from the last
steamer. At first wine was served by the black servants to those that drank
it, though all quickly shifted back to Scotch and soda, pickling their food
as they ate it, ere it went into their calcined, pickled stomachs.
Over their coffee, they heard the rumble of an anchor-chain through a
hawse-pipe, tokening the arrival of a vessel.
“It’s David Grief,” Peter Gee remarked.
“How do you know?” Deacon demanded truculently, and then went on to
deny the half-caste’s knowledge. “You chaps put on a lot of side over a
new chum. I’ve done some sailing myself, and this naming a craft when its
sail is only a blur, or naming a man by the sound of his anchor—it’s—it’s
unadulterated poppycock.”
Peter Gee was engaged in lighting a cigarette, and did not answer.
“Some of the niggers do amazing things that way,” McMurtrey interposed
tactfully.
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93
As with the others, this conduct of their visitor jarred on the manager.
From the moment of Peter Gee’s arrival that afternoon Deacon had
manifested a tendency to pick on him. He had disputed his statements and
been generally rude.
“Maybe it’s because Peter’s got Chink blood in him,” had been Andrews’
hypothesis. “Deacon’s Australian, you know, and they’re daffy down there
on colour.”
“I fancy that’s it,” McMurtrey had agreed. “But we can’t permit any
bullying, especially of a man like Peter Gee, who’s whiter than most white
men.”
In this the manager had been in nowise wrong. Peter Gee was that rare
creature, a good as well as clever Eurasian. In fact, it was the stolid
integrity of the Chinese blood that toned the recklessness and
licentiousness of the English blood which had run in his father’s veins.
Also, he was better educated than any man there, spoke better English as
well as several other tongues, and knew and lived more of their own ideals
of gentlemanness than they did themselves. And, finally, he was a gentle
soul. Violence he deprecated, though he had killed men in his time.
Turbulence he abhorred. He always avoided it as he would the plague.
Captain Stapler stepped in to help McMurtrey:
“I remember, when I changed schooners and came into Altman, the
niggers knew right off the bat it was me. I wasn’t expected, either, much
less to be in another craft. They told the trader it was me. He used the
glasses, and wouldn’t believe them. But they did know. Told me afterward
they could see it sticking out all over the schooner that I was running her.”
Deacon ignored him, and returned to the attack on the pearl- buyer.
“How do you know from the sound of the anchor that it was this whateveryou-
called-him man?” he challenged.
“There are so many things that go to make up such a judgment,” Peter Gee
answered. “It’s very hard to explain. It would require almost a text book.”
“I thought so,” Deacon sneered. “Explanation that doesn’t explain is easy.”
“Who’s for bridge?” Eddy Little, the second clerk, interrupted, looking up
expectantly and starting to shuffle. “You’ll play, won’t you, Peter?”
“If he does, he’s a bluffer,” Deacon cut back. “I’m getting tired of all this
poppycock. Mr. Gee, you will favour me and put yourself in a better light
A SON OF THE SUN
94
if you tell how you know who that man was that just dropped anchor.
After that I’ll play you piquet.”
“I’d prefer bridge,” Peter answered. “As for the other thing, it’s something
like this: By the sound it was a small craft—no squarerigger. No whistle,
no siren, was blown—again a small craft. It anchored close in-still again a
small craft, for steamers and big ships must drop hook outside the middle
shoal. Now the entrance is tortuous. There is no recruiting nor trading
captain in the group who dares to run the passage after dark. Certainly no
stranger would. There were two exceptions. The first was Margonville.
But he was executed by the High Court at Fiji. Remains the other
exception, David Grief. Night or day, in any weather, he runs the passage.
This is well known to all. A possible factor, in case Grief were somewhere
else, would be some young dare- devil of a skipper. In this connection, in
the first place, I don’t know of any, nor does anybody else. In the second
place, David Grief is in these waters, cruising on the Gunga, which is
shortly scheduled to leave here for Karo-Karo. I spoke to Grief, on the
Gunga, in Sandfly Passage, day before yesterday. He was putting a trader
ashore on a new station. He said he was going to call in at Babo, and then
come on to Goboto. He has had ample time to get here. I have heard an
anchor drop. Who else than David Grief can it be? Captain Donovan is
skipper of the Gunga, and him I know too well to believe that he’d run in
to Goboto after dark unless his owner were in charge. In a few minutes
David Grief will enter through that door and say, ‘In Guvutu they merely
drink between drinks.’ I’ll wager fifty pounds he’s the man that enters and
that his words will be, ‘In Guvutu they merely drink between drinks.”‘
Deacon was for the moment crushed. The sullen blood rose darkly in his
face.
“Well, he’s answered you,” McMurtrey laughed genially. “And I’ll back
his bet myself for a couple of sovereigns.”
“Bridge! Who’s going to take a hand?” Eddy Little cried impatiently.
“Come on, Peter!”
“The rest of you play,” Deacon said. “He and I are going to play piquet. ”
“I’d prefer bridge,” Peter Gee said mildly.
“Don’t you play piquet?”
The pearl-buyer nodded.
“Then come on. Maybe I can show I know more about that than I do about
anchors.”
A SON OF THE SUN
95
“Oh, I say—” McMurtrey began.
“You can play bridge,” Deacon shut him off. “We prefer piquet.”
Reluctantly, Peter Gee was bullied into a game that he knew would be
unhappy.
“Only a rubber,” he said, as he cut for deal.
“For how much?” Deacon asked.
Peter Gee shrugged his shoulders. “As you please.”
“Hundred up—five pounds a game?”
Peter Gee agreed.
“With the lurch double, of course, ten pounds?”
“All right,” said Peter Gee.
At another table four of the others sat in at bridge. Captain Stapler, who
was no cardplayer, looked on and replenished the long glasses of Scotch
that stood at each man’s right hand. McMurtrey, with poorly concealed
apprehension, followed as well as he could what went on at the piquet
table. His fellow Englishmen as well were shocked by the behaviour of the
Australian, and all were troubled by fear of some untoward act on his part.
That he was working up his animosity against the half-caste, and that the
explosion might come any time, was apparent to all.
“I hope Peter loses,” McMurtrey said in an undertone.
“Not if he has any luck,” Andrews answered. “He’s a wizard at piquet. I
know by experience.”
That Peter Gee was lucky was patent from the continual badgering of
Deacon, who filled his glass frequently. He had lost the first game, and,
from his remarks, was losing the second, when the door opened and David
Grief entered.
“In Guvutu they merely drink between drinks,” he remarked casually to
the assembled company, ere he gripped the manager’s hand. “Hello, Mac!
Say, my skipper’s down in the whaleboat. He’s got a silk shirt, a tie, and
tennis shoes, all complete, but he wants you to send a pair of pants down.
Mine are too small, but yours will fit him. Hello, Eddy! How’s that ngaringari?
You up, Jock? The miracle has happened. No one down with fever,
A SON OF THE SUN
96
and no one remarkably drunk.” He sighed, “I suppose the night is young
yet. Hello, Peter! Did you catch that big squall an hour after you left us?
We had to let go the second anchor.”
While he was being introduced to Deacon, McMurtrey dispatched a
house-boy with the pants, and when Captain Donovan came in it was as a
white man should—at least in Goboto.
Deacon lost the second game, and an outburst heralded the fact. Peter Gee
devoted himself to lighting a cigarette and keeping quiet.
“What?—are you quitting because you’re ahead?” Deacon demanded.
Grief raised his eyebrows questioningly to McMurtrey, who frowned back
his own disgust.
“It’s the rubber,” Peter Gee answered.
“It takes three games to make a rubber. It’s my deal. Come on!”