Johnny Black brought them there from off his schooner the night he died.
He was just back from a long cruise to the westward, fishing beche-de-mer
and sandalwood trading. All the beach knows the tale.”
Pankburn shook his head.
“Go on,” he urged.
“It was before my time, of course,” Grief explained. “I only tell what I’ve
heard. Next came the Ecuadoran cruiser, of all directions, in from the
westward, and bound home. Her officers recognized the spikes. Johnny
Black was dead. They got hold of his mate and log-book. Away to the
westward went she. Six months after, again bound home, she dropped in at
Peenoo-Peenee. She had failed, and the tale leaked out.”
“When the revolutionists were marching on Guayaquil,” Pankburn took it
up, “the federal officers, believing a defence of the city hopeless, salted
down the government treasure chest, something like a million dollars gold,
but all in English coinage, and put it on board the American schooner
Flirt. They were going to run at daylight. The American captain skinned
out in the middle of the night. Go on.”
“It’s an old story,” Grief resumed. “There was no other vessel in the
harbour. The federal leaders couldn’t run. They put their backs to the wall
and held the city. Rohjas Salced, making a forced march from Quito,
raised the siege. The revolution was broken, and the one ancient steamer
that constituted the Ecuadoran navy was sent in pursuit of the Flirt. They
caught her, between the Banks Group and the New Hebrides, hove to and
flying distress signals. The captain had died the day before—blackwater
fever.” “And the mate?” Pankburn challenged.
“The mate had been killed a week earlier by the natives on one of the
Banks, when they sent a boat in for water. There were no navigators left.
The men were put to the torture. It was beyond international law. They
A SON OF THE SUN
26
wanted to confess, but couldn’t. They told of the three spikes in the trees
on the beach, but where the island was they did not know. To the
westward, far to the westward, was all they knew. The tale now goes two
ways. One is that they all died under the torture. The other is that the
survivors were swung at the yardarm. At any rate, the Ecuadoran cruiser
went home without the treasure. Johnny Black brought the three spikes to
Peenoo-Peenee, and left them at German Oscar’s, but how and where he
found them he never told.”
Pankburn looked hard at the whiskey bottle.
“Just two fingers,” he whimpered.
Grief considered, and poured a meagre drink. Pankburn’s eyes sparkled,
and he took new lease of life.
“And this is where I come in with the missing details,” he said. “Johnny
Black did tell. He told my father. Wrote him from Levuka, before he came
on to die at Peenoo-Peenee. My father had saved his life one rough-house
night in Valparaiso. A Chink pearler, out of Thursday Island, prospecting
for new grounds to the north of New Guinea, traded for the three spikes
with a nigger. Johnny Black bought them for copper weight. He didn’t
dream any more than the Chink, but coming back he stopped for hawksbill
turtle at the very beach where you say the mate of the Flirt was killed.
Only he wasn’t killed. The Banks Islanders held him prisoner, and he was
dying of necrosis of the jawbone, caused by an arrow wound in the fight
on the beach. Before he died he told the yarn to Johnny Black. Johnny
Black wrote my father from Levuka. He was at the end of his rope—
cancer. My father, ten years afterward, when captain of the Perry, got the
spikes from German Oscar. And from my father, last will and testament,
you know, came the spikes and the data. I have the island, the latitude and
longitude of the beach where the three spikes were nailed in the trees. The
spikes are up at Lavina’s now. The latitude and longitude are in my head.
Now what do you think?”
“Fishy,” was Grief’s instant judgment. “Why didn’t your father go and get
it himself?”
“Didn’t need it. An uncle died and left him a fortune. He retired from the
navy, ran foul of an epidemic of trained nurses in Boston, and my mother
got a divorce. Also, she fell heir to an income of something like thirty
thousand dollars, and went to live in New Zealand. I was divided between
them, half-time New Zealand, half-time United States, until my father’s
death last year. Now my mother has me altogether. He left me his
money—oh, a couple of millions—but my mother has had guardians
appointed on account of the drink. I’m worth all kinds of money, but I
A SON OF THE SUN
27
can’t touch a penny save what is doled out to me. But the old man, who
had got the tip on my drinking, left me the three spikes and the data
thereunto pertaining. Did it through his lawyers, unknown to my mother;
said it beat life insurance, and that if I had the backbone to go and get it I
could drink my back teeth awash until I died. Millions in the hands of my
guardians, slathers of shekels of my mother’s that’ll be mine if she beats
me to the crematory, another million waiting to be dug up, and in the
meantime I’m cadging on Lavina for two drinks a day. It’s hell, isn’t it? —
when you consider my thirst.”
“Where’s the island?”
“It’s a long way from here.”
“Name it.”
“Not on your life, Captain Grief. You’re making an easy half-million out
of this. You will sail under my directions, and when we’re well to sea and
on our way I’ll tell you and not before.”
Grief shrugged his shoulders, dismissing the subject.
“When I’ve given you another drink I’ll send the boat ashore with you,” he
said.
Pankburn was taken aback. For at least five minutes he debated with
himself, then licked his lips and surrendered.
“If you promise to go, I’ll tell you now.”
“Of course I’m willing to go. That’s why I asked you. Name the island.”
Pankburn looked at the bottle.
“I’ll take that drink now, Captain.”
“No you won’t. That drink was for you if you went ashore. If you are
going to tell me the island, you must do it in your sober senses.”
“Francis Island, if you will have it. Bougainville named it Barbour Island.”
“Off there all by its lonely in the Little Coral Sea,” Grief said. “I know it.
Lies between New Ireland and New Guinea. A rotten hole now, though it
was all right when the Flirt drove in the spikes and the Chink pearler
traded for them. The steamship Castor, recruiting labour for the Upolu
plantations, was cut off there with all hands two years ago. I knew her
A SON OF THE SUN
28
captain well. The Germans sent a cruiser, shelled the bush, burned half a
dozen villages, killed a couple of niggers and a lot of pigs, and—and that
was all. The niggers always were bad there, but they turned really bad
forty years ago. That was when they cut off a whaler. Let me see? What
was her name?”
He stepped to the bookshelf, drew out the bulky “South Pacific Directory,”
and ran through its pages.
“Yes. Here it is. Francis, or Barbour,” he skimmed. “Natives warlike and
treacherous—Melanesian—cannibals. Whaleship Western cut off—that
was her name. Shoals—points—anchorages—ah, Redscar, Owen Bay,
Likikili Bay, that’s more like it; deep indentation, mangrove swamps, good
holding in nine fathoms when white scar in bluff
bears west-southwest.” Grief looked up. “That’s your beach, Pankburn, I’ll
swear.”
“Will you go?” the other demanded eagerly.
Grief nodded.
“It sounds good to me. Now if the story had been of a hundred millions, or
some such crazy sum, I wouldn’t look at it for a moment. We’ll sail tomorrow,
but under one consideration. You are to be absolutely under my
orders.”
His visitor nodded emphatically and joyously.
“And that means no drink.”
“That’s pretty hard,” Pankburn whined.
“It’s my terms. I’m enough of a doctor to see you don’t come to harm. And
you are to work-hard work, sailor’s work. You’ll stand regular watches and
everything, though you eat and sleep aft with us.”
“It’s a go.” Pankburn put out his hand to ratify the agreement. “If it doesn’t
kill me,” he added.
David Grief poured a generous three-fingers into the tumbler and extended
it.
“Then here’s your last drink. Take it.”
A SON OF THE SUN
29
Pankburn’s hand went halfway out. With a sudden spasm of resolution, he
hesitated, threw back his shoulders, and straightened up his head.
“I guess I won’t,” he began, then, feebly surrendering to the gnaw of
desire, he reached hastily for the glass, as if in fear that it would be
withdrawn.
IV
It is a long traverse from Papeete in the Societies to the Little Coral Sea—