‘God bless you, my dear,’ he said and ran on deck, where a great voice was calling ‘Hell and death, where is the Doctor? Will no one rouse me out that Doctor?’
They pulled ashore through the rows of Puolani’s great double-hulled war-canoes, Jack and Pullings in a blaze of gold lace and epaulettes, the others in their respective degrees of glory, and they were received with a stately formal welcome; for although the Truelove was an old friend, nothing like the Surprise had been seen in these waters, with a crow’s nest like a whaler but with no whale-boat at all and far, far too many guns.
Jack and Pullings, with Stephen and Martin, Oakes and Adams, with Bonden carrying the sandalwood chest and Tapia to interpret, paced up in twos from the sea, through ranks of elderly grave-faced men holding fern-palm fronds, towards a wide, open-walled building where a woman was sitting on a broad bench that ran the whole width of the house with several islanders on either side of her: Jack noticed that whereas she was wearing a splendid feather cloak all the others, old men, young men, women and girls, were bare to the waist.
When they were within ten yards of her, an ancient man, remarkably tattooed and with a white bone through the septum of his nose, gave Jack the leafy branch of a breadfruit-tree. The last men of the line threw down their fronds and Tapia said ‘That is a sign they mean peace. If you put yours on top, that shows you mean peace too.’
Jack laid the branch solemnly over the fronds: the woman stood up, as tall as Jack and broad-shouldered, but not nearly so heavy. ‘This is Queen Puolani,’ said Tapia, taking off his shirt. Jack made his bow, his hat tucked under his left arm, an elegant leg stretched out; she stepped forward, shook his hand in the European manner – a firm, dry clasp – and led him in, seating him next to herself. He named the others by order of rank and she inclined her head to each, a welcoming, friendly smile on her handsome face, no darker than an Italian’s and scarcely tattooed at all. Perhaps thirty or thirty-five. There were some forty people, men and women, sitting in this pleasant airy place, and when all the newcomers were settled there followed an exchange of compliments. A meal was proposed; Jack excused himself – they had just eaten – but happily accepted the suggestion of kava, and while it was handing round he called for the presents. They were well received, particularly the smaller bunches of feathers that, on Tapia’s whispered advice, he offered to the aunts and cousins of Puolani’s house. She herself, and her councillors, were clearly too anxious to pay very much attention to beads or even looking-glasses: it was also obvious, from the general course of the conversation, that many of her enquiries were a matter of form. From what her people had learnt from their friends in the Truelove and from other sources she knew most of what had happened, and asked only out of politeness.
Presently she sent most of the people away, accompanying some various distances across the square before the house, others to the threshold, while others were dismissed with a smile; and the assembly was reduced to Puolani and two councillors, Jack, Stephen and Tapia.
When Jack said ‘Kalahua is about to attack you, with the help of the Americans,’ she replied, ‘We know. He has reached the Oratonga spring, the river that flows into our bay, with thirty-seven white men: they have muskets and a gun – a gun. They may be here early the day after tomorrow.’
‘So I have heard,’ said Jack. ‘As for the gun, he may have dragged it up, but without a road he may never be able to drag it down – nothing so cumbrous as a gun. Yet even if he should, it is no great matter: we have many more guns, bigger and better; many, many more muskets. I must tell you, ma’am – put that as civil as ever you can, Tapia, d’ye hear me – I must tell you that the Americans are my King’s enemies: the two states are at war and that we shall guard you from them and from Kalahua, who has misused our countrymen, if you will accept King George’s protection – is that how I should put it, Stephen? – and promise to be a faithful, loving ally.’
The Polynesians brightened amazingly. After a few words with the old chiefs Puolani turned to Jack with sparkling eyes and a glowing face – the flush was clearly perceptible –
and said ‘I welcome King George’s protection; and I shall be a faithful loving ally; as faithful and loving as I was to my own husband.’
Tapia translated the last words, added perhaps as an afterthought, with a particular flatness; and the councillors looked down. ‘What a handsome creature she is,’ thought Jack, and he said ‘Very well: that is settled. Allow me to give you your protector’s likeness.’
He brought the shining crown from his pocket, and after a pause for the translation, hung it round her acquiescent neck. ‘Now, ma’am,’ he said, rising and looking at her with respectful admiration, ‘if I may speak to your war-chiefs, we may start getting some of our guns ashore and making our preparations. There is not a moment to be lost.’
Not a moment was lost. By sunset both ships were moored outside the bay, under the lee of its southern headland, in good holding ground and completely invisible from the hills over which Kalahua must come; and although the emplacements had been chosen, even the carronades were not to be landed until dusk, in case some advanced party should see them being rolled up the open strand before reaching the impenetrable green. And by sunset Jack had explored the traditional battlefields, three places along the only route across the mountains for a considerable body of men, above all for men pulling a gun.
‘I am so sorry you had to stay with your patients,’ he said, taking his ease at last in the great cabin with a bowl of fruit to quench his thirst. ‘You would have rejoiced in the birds.
There was one with a beak.’
‘That alone would have been worth the voyage.’
‘A yellow bird, with a heavy great beak shaped like a sickle: and many others. You would have been delighted. However, you shall see them later. Well, now, there were three main battlefields by land. The first is a grassy plain between the sudden precipitous hills and the cultivated ground: there the southern people wait for the northerners, and they draw up in lines, throw spears and slingstones and then go for one another with clubs and the like in the old-fashioned way; but there is the disadvantage of three taboo groves, and if anyone passes within hand’s reach, either pursuing or being pursued, he brings defeat on his side; and his soul, together with the souls of all those related to him, spend eternity in that volcano up there.’
‘Is it active?’
‘Pretty active, I believe. Then the next place is quite high up, a natural cleft of rather better than a cable’s length, with remarkably steep sides. When our friends here learn that the northerners are coming they usually send a squadron of war-canoes up to Pabay – they are better at sea than on land -while another body hurries to this cleft and throws up a dry-stone wall: they are amazingly quick and skilful and they have the stone at hand.
Sometimes they hold it, being picked men: sometimes they are overwhelmed, the attackers having the advantage of the slope. But even if that does happen, the southerners rarely suffer much, since the men from Pabay have to hurry back because of the war-canoes. The third place is where the really decisive battles have been fought. It is higher still, on a desolate lava plain flanked with cliffs; it has a damned unpleasant sulphurous smell, and it is still littered with whitened bones. I absolutely saw hundreds of skulls: perhaps thousands.’
‘May I ask what you mean to do?’
‘Oh, it is the cleft, every time. Kalahua knows that Puolani cannot send her war-canoes to Pabay with the Franklin likely to appear at any moment: he can use his whole force, demolish the wall at once if he has brought his gun so far, and in any case push on without fear. I will draw you the cleft. There: about two hundred yards long and twenty wide: room for Kalahua and all his men. My idea – I must repeat that they are astonishing hands at dry-stone building – is to post two carronades here at the north entrance, hidden by walls. Four more at the southern end, spaced out thus and similarly hid, two firing straight down and two, like those at the far end, firing diagonally: quite a slight angle, but enough to sweep the whole ground. I post a few of Puolani’s people just beyond the cleft.