Slow Boat from China

Rick lay back in the bath with a sigh of pleasure and let warm water soothe away his travel aches. He didn’t move for some time, then slowly turned his head to watch cold beads running down a frosted glass on the side table. He sat up and reached for it. Slowly he sipped, and in a little while his whole being seemed gently to expand. He lay back in the water, sighed, and closed his eyes.

When the water cooled a little he called softly and a pretty young woman dressed in a colourful kimono came in. Rick touched the hot water tap with his toe and said, “Be a darling, will you?” closed his eyes again and sighed once more with deep pleasure.

Later, when the water had finally cooled and he was thinking about getting out, a slim hand reached down between his feet, pulled the plug, and laughed when he protested feebly. Reluctantly he emerged and stood there, eyes closed, hands on head. The soft towel felt fine and he wasn’t cold because it doesn’t get that way in Manila.

Rick wrapped a fresh towel around his middle and permitted himself to be led into the next room. He lay prone on the hard board and waited for those surprisingly strong and cunning little fingers to work on him. Sometimes his whole body shook with the pounding and kneading but he lay there and was grateful. When the massage was done he was reluctant to move; but sleep escaped him.

He got up and walked over to the television. Tagalog was incomprehensible so he switched it off. The big ceiling fan was clicked up another notch and Rick lay down on the bed. The dusty old blades went rung-rung-rung, trailing cobwebs. Geckos hunted flies upside down on the ceiling and rapped their heads on the woodwork when romance gripped them.

In a little while Rick opened his eyes and called out and the petite figure came in, carrying a glass in which the ice tinkled. She perched on the side of the bed like a brilliant bird of paradise and practised her English.

After a motherly old soul had flip-flopped in with a laden tray which smelt delicious, the two gave themselves over to eating, offering little delicacies one to the other, as lovers have always done. And when they put the tray to one side, Rick lay back on the pillow and looked up at the glossy black hair swept back almost severely and tied behind so that a ponytail hung down. And the smooth forehead and the widely spaced, almost almond-shaped brown eyes. And the little, almost flat nose over a generous mouth and well-set white teeth. The chin was small and delicate. Above all, Rick delighted in the flawless golden complexion and the slight, schoolgirl figure.

Looking directly into brown eyes, he reached up and tenderly cupped the side of her face with his hand, then slowly ran a forefinger down one side, around the angle of the jaw, hesitating on the slender throat, and on down to the pale-gold vee revealed by the kimono. The dark head bent over him and the ponytail brushed his face. Rick closed his eyes and felt the weight of her on his chest. She smelt delicious. That was the way it had been for three vacations now. Rick was far from home and didn’t mind at all.

Green weed and slime hung along the waterline of the old fishing boat, which dipped regularly as the sea rolled her. Nails wept rust stains down the sides of the hull. Mostly the superstructure was bare, sun-bleached wood, but the wheelhouse boasted some cracked and peeling white paint. There was an old-fashioned balustrade around it and bits of gear were stowed on top. The old ship looked ready to sink, but that was only superficial because she was all solid teak and the hull was deep-draughted fore and aft. She was a good seaboat.

Lying athwart the hatches amidships were two work-worn, flat-bottomed dories. The ship was about sixty feet long, showed her high-ended junk forebears, and had been out from Khaosiung for some time.

Down below, an ancient one-lung diesel engine tonked away and rocked on its bearers. Disintegration seemed imminent but the old rust-heap never failed unless the boat was caught where it shouldn’t be. Then, it was immediately stopped, bits removed, and the skipper summoned heaven to witness his bad luck.

From the engine a vee-belt drove an ammonia compressor to refrigerate the fish holds. Throat-gripping, eye-smarting fumes showed that it was in working order.

The skipper was not the owner. He was on shares, like the six young men with him. Good catch, good money; bad catch, no money. The owner provided the boat and fuel, some sacks of rice, a bundle of paper prayer flags, and that was all. Then the crew put out on the wide Pacific Ocean, ate what they caught, and came home when they had to. And the whole affair was a joint venture which depended almost entirely on poaching giant clams on other nations’ reefs. There, the crew launched the dories and set to work with snorkel, flippers and sharp steel chisel.

A swift downstroke and the huge shells fell apart. The big, white adductor muscle was cut out, put in a plastic bag, and the diver moved on, leaving the remains of the clam to scavengers. The meat fetched big prices back in Khaosiung.

The skipper was an old hand at the game and could find his way about the broad blue Pacific waters almost blindfold. He knew all the islands and reefs within a hundred days’ range; also the people who lived there and those who ruled them. And if there was a source of fresh water anywhere in the islands—preferably in a quiet place—then he knew about that too.

Since a fishing boat may sail through the territorial waters of others quite freely as long as her fishing gear is stowed and no fish is on deck, it was easy for a clamboat to potter about scattered Pacific coral atolls. To be caught poaching in a remote place was unlikely. In fact, at one time the risk was negligible.

But the world was closing in. There was an upsurge in independence movements and the new leaders were often hard men who would shoot at foreign boats and imprison the crews. Some were never heard of again. It paid a clamboat skipper to give certain countries a wide berth—which meant that more easy-going places were increasingly imposed upon.

Apahai Vara, known as Oro to his friends, lived in a small village down the coast, south-east of the city. In the dry season trucks could reach it but otherwise boats were the only means of transport. The villagers were good canoe people. The women paddled across the lagoon to their food gardens almost every day. Of late, a big crocodile had lain in wait and sometimes harassed the canoes—but never when men had gone along with their spears. It was obviously a clever beast.

Oro’s father was an elder of the tribe and his mother came from a line of influential women whose ancestry could be traced right back to Miavia Kivavaia, the fish which came ashore and grew arms and legs and finally stood up as a man. He then planted sago and called it maira poa, and taro which was named ipo mavea. Miavia had no wife yet produced two daughters and several sons who started the Kiva Maku clan.

Oro believed this but was a little sceptical about the origin of the coconut which supposedly was the lost head of a fisherman. The three marks at one end didn’t really look like two eyes and a nose, did they?

Be that as it may, the price of copra had recently slumped. It was hardly worth the labour of cutting out white coconut meat and smoke-drying it. Times were hard in the village and there was no money for those pleasant things which add to life immensely.

Today Oro would go fishing on the reef. If there weren’t any luxuries, at least no one went hungry. He got up and went down to the beach and dragged a small canoe down to the water’s edge over the sand. He put in his handlines, fish spear, some bait, counted his paddles, looked for the coconut-shell bailer, and pushed off into the lagoon.

He dropped the mast through a hole in the thwart, and shook the sail free. He climbed out to one side as the breeze took hold and the canoe sped away from the land. The sea sparkled and little drops of spray settled on his face. Oro was happy once more.

The canoe rounded the small headland and altered course slightly, heading for a favourite fishing hole. Oro frowned; there was a boat hove-to just outside and he could see two dories over the coral. He sped towards them on a broad reach, the outrigger sometimes coming right out of the water, which would have been exhilarating at any other time. Now he was angry; he knew these people. What right had they to come here and steal the villagers’ food?

Oro flashed by, ignoring friendly gestures. He came up into the wind and let the sheet fly. Then he tossed a small anchor over the side and brailed up the sail with a short length of cord, and sat there in the morning sun and pondered whilst he fished.

When he had caught enough he pulled in the anchor and paddled over to the divers busy on the reef. The foreigners floated on the surface and blew spouts of water from their snorkels. Oro could see the broad flippers as the divers disappeared below, just like little whales. He was now quite close and the intruders waved again in greeting.

Looking down in the water Oro could see the gaping giant clams and the mantles and viscera trailing in the current and the little rainbow fish darting about and nibbling. This was wrong, for clams were a traditional diet in the village, a valuable reserve when fish were scarce. He said nothing but sailed home.

The village talked about the matter while they were eating in the evening. In the end there was much agitation and talk of government action, which brought shouts of derision. So the matter was resolved in another way.

When the two dories were over the reef next morning at sun-up, the village fleet surrounded them. Two canoes filled with fighting men, spears and all, boarded the mother ship and told the skipper that unless he took the vessel into the lagoon and anchored they would all be killed there and then. An hour later it was done and a messenger despatched up the coast.

The captives were not tied up for there was nowhere for them to go. They were treated fairly, even fed, but that was all. Some of the young bucks beat drums and chanted old war songs and felt good about it. It was a very nervous situation.

Oro observed the Asian features, particularly the eyes, and wondered if at some time in the dim past such people had married into his clan, for many of his people, though dark skinned, looked just like that.

Rick parked his car by the quayside, dragged out a shotgun and a box of ammunition and walked briskly towards his modest patrol boat. He looked down and saw that already the coxswain had the engine running and was now sounding the fuel tank. A truck pulled up and two armed policemen jumped down. Rick beckoned them aboard. Ropes were cast off and the boat headed out at full speed.

As dark descended, the launch came into the lagoon, put one policeman aboard the clamboat, and then went ashore to view the captives. It was all something new; never before had local people done something like this. Times change, thought Rick. Then he saw the satisfied looks on the faces about him and knew that nothing really changes; not in a million years does tribalism perish.

The trip back up the coast to the city was uneventful, with Rick leading the way and the clammer tonk-tonking along behind slowly.

The boat and dories were confiscated because the law was written that way. The skipper went to jail for three months and his crew made out as best they could. The local Chinese community did all they could to help, which was a wrong move in a newly independent island state, and there was talk of action by native people. But nothing came of it and the poachers were eventually repatriated.

Some time after national independence many administrators were still expatriates of the old brigade, and this included harbour officials. And it’s a strange thing about master mariners who swallow the anchor and take a shore job, that they are difficult people to deal with. You might call them somewhat crusty. What is more, they are sticklers for efficiency and organisation. And old clamboats littering the foreshore in the harbour precincts are an eyesore anyway. So orders went out that this one must be disposed of forthwith.

One calm morning, a tug pulled the vessel off the beach and towed her across the bay. They went through the passage between the reefs and out into deep water where Rick went aboard and committed arson—at least that’s how he felt. And it caused consternation to shore folk who saw the smoke. The harbourmaster’s phone rang all morning.

Burnt right down to the water, the poor old thing still refused to sink. So the tug gently rammed her until at last some rusty old tanks were stove in and down she went, very slowly. Rick leaned out from the tug’s bridge to watch her sink quietly down into the midnight-blue waters through the dancing, golden shafts of sunlight. At last only a myriad of white bubbles streaming upwards marked the burial site.

To sink a ship of any sort is a murderous and sad sort of thing. Rick pondered on the matter as they headed for port. And if the crew from Khaosiung had been there they would have wept—even as you and I.

The plane from Manila touched down in the searing heat of the dry season. Rick came down the steps and felt the sun strike him like a hammer. Sweat broke out on his forehead. Quickly he walked to the customs and immigration shed. Back to work! Still it didn’t matter very much, not yet, for the pleasant memory of it all lingered on his mind. He waved to his wife through the barrier.

A week later Rick was found in his little rattletrap Suzuki on the roadside about midnight. The engine was still running but Rick’s heart had stopped. He’d never let on about the by-pass operation and the length of plastic tubing in his chest. Sitting there, head to one side, he seemed very composed. And there was an enigmatic look; the Manila smile still lingered.

His wife wanted a sea burial and when I rang up the Navy they took to it as if it was their own bright and original idea because Rick had sailed with them often and had been well liked.

So it was all arranged and, on the day, flags drooping and a crowd of workmates aboard—even a Japanese couple from a fishing company—the grey ship put to sea in fine style. It only lacked a brass band.

Amidships, on the starboard side, on a wooden platform by the rail, lay Rick all neatly sewn up in canvas, well ballasted, and flag-draped. And as we gathered speed other flags fluttered bravely overhead.

Out through the passage in the reef we went and, pretty well where the old clamboat had been burnt and sunk, we hove to and the chaplain read the service.

“Man that is born of woman hath but a short time to live … cut down like a flower …” the voice droned on and the tropic sun beat down and came up from the water fiercely. The breeze had died and it was very hot.

When the board was tilted Rick slid off in fine style but I reckon as he hit the water he almost jack-knifed. What if there wasn’t enough ballast?

But he went straight down through the clear water. Leaning over the rail I could see the white canvas and in no time at all nothing but a mass of tiny white bubbles streaming upward marked the passing of Rick. Perhaps he settled not very far from the old clamboat. If only we could have dropped him on deck!

We’d borrowed an Aussie flag from the embassy and later they wanted it back; but someone must have souvenired it. Down at the office I went through Rick’s bits and pieces; it was a melancholy affair. I got a cardboard box and packed the stuff to take to his wife. But not all of it: there was a bundle of letters from Manila which later I would burn.