The Persimmon Tree Read online

  K. Judge didn’t react and kept staring, snot dripping, the cannibal threat — or any other — evidently not getting through to him. I sighed and got to my feet, slung the water bottle strap over my head and walked over to my knapsack and lifted it onto my back. ‘Coming or not?’ I said, as I started to walk away, not glancing back. The empty water bottle bounced on my hip, making a muffled tinny sound.

  I hadn’t gone more than ten yards when I heard him shout, ‘Sir! Sir!’ I waited without turning to look at him. I could hear the squeak his feet made in the dry beach sand as he stumbled towards me. When he reached me he fell onto his knees at my feet, gripping the top of my right boot in both hands and in a frightened child’s voice implored me, ‘Please, sir, don’t let them turn me into savages’ soup!’ Then he started to bawl.

  The experience of having grown men bawling at my feet was becoming all too familiar, although the little bloke was probably close to my own age but I couldn’t really tell with all the oil covering him.

  ‘What’s your name?’ I asked gently.

  ‘Kevin, sir!’ he sobbed.

  ‘How old are you, Kevin?’

  ‘Six, sir.’

  ‘Righto, you get up now and take my hand.’ I held out my hand for him; he took it and I helped him to his feet. ‘Now don’t let go of me. It’s very important if we’re going to escape.’ I pointed to the strip of green, the mangroves at the far end of the beach. ‘I’ve got a boat hidden in there. We’ve got to get there as fast as we can to escape the terrible human-flesh-eating savages,’ I said, laying it on thick.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ he choked, still blubbing, his hand gripping even tighter around my own. I looked down at his legs and feet to see that they were scratched and bleeding from when he’d previously gone bush.

  Poor little bastard; I wondered how much longer he could keep going. I had to get him onto the cutter and attend to his head wound. The water he’d swallowed would have helped a bit, but he would still be pretty dehydrated. I walked him down to the edge of the surf where the wet sand was harder and it would be easier going, while the salt water washing in from the spent waves would help the cuts. I reasoned our footprints would be washed away fairly quickly. I decided I’d have to carry him across the short stretch of mangrove forest when we got there. The creek hadn’t been more than four feet deep when I’d previously waded across it. With the tide now fully in, it might be somewhat higher. The little bloke wouldn’t have been much taller than five feet and couldn’t swim.

  ‘Okay, you can stop crying now, Kevin. I reckon we’ll be just fine. You hang onto my hand — don’t let go no matter what — and we’ll be safe,’ I cautioned. We continued at a fairly steady pace, mostly in silence as all the time I was trying to listen for any sound of native activity. I also didn’t want to say too much lest I trigger a different Kevin Judge, a persona from the past who might be more difficult to handle than the compliant ‘six-year-old’ I was leading to the boat.

  When we reached the mangroves the incoming tide had hidden the roots and, in particular, the smaller shoots that pierce the mud at low tide. These are hard, with sharp tips, and can cut badly if you step on them; the cuts not as bad as coral cuts but liable to fester and become quite nasty. I made Kevin shoulder my knapsack and then climb up to sit on my shoulders where I thought he’d be easier to carry than if I piggybacked him. We proceeded through the muddy waist-high water, stumbling once or twice against hidden roots but finally arriving unscathed at the edge of the creek.

  ‘Now, Kevin, I want you to take off the knapsack from your back. Whatever you do, don’t drop it.’ The thought of the knapsack falling into the water and damaging my precious specimen was unimaginable.

  Kevin didn’t reply and I held my breath as I felt him trying to wriggle free, to get the straps over his arms. ‘It’s okay, I’ve got your legs, you won’t fall, I promise.’ I then castigated myself silently. I should have left the knapsack on the beach before we entered the mangroves, and returned for it when I had him safely on board. He eventually managed to get the knapsack off and held it out, with one arm still clutched around my forehead.

  ‘Now, Kevin, I want you to hook it over a mangrove branch, this one next to us. Make sure it’s secure, very secure!’ I fought back the panic as he struggled to do as he was told. All I needed was for the knapsack to slip from his grasp and the Magpie Crow… I couldn’t bring myself to complete the thought. I heard the rustle of leaves, then silence, then Kevin pushing away from the branch and all the while I hadn’t taken a breath. ‘Okay, Kevin, is it safe?’

  ‘Yes, sir, I think so, sir.’

  Oh God, please let it be! I thought to myself.

  I still wasn’t sure how far the incoming tide had managed to raise the level of the creek, but reckoned from the depth of the water in the mangroves I should be able to walk across to the boat with Kevin sitting on my shoulders.

  ‘Can you swim, Kevin?’ I asked, just in case I’d underestimated the depth.

  ‘I ain’t learned yet, sir. Only when we’re eight,’ he replied.

  ‘Righto, you stay on my back; it’s not deep — about five feet, perhaps a bit more — so hang on while I walk us through.’ I stepped into the deeper water and I could feel him shaking, his hands clasped around my forehead as he hung on for dear life. At its deepest the water came to just under my chin. I made for the bronze mooring post on the starboard quarter of the deck and by the time I’d reached the cutter the creek level was just above my navel. ‘Righto, Kevin, hop aboard,’ I instructed.

  ‘I’ll fall, sir,’ he said in a small voice.

  ‘No you won’t, I’ve got you. Just loosen your grip on my head and grab that post in front of you, then climb onto my shoulders. Here, I’ll push you up.’ His arms left my head and I let go of his legs as he wriggled frantically. Placing one foot on my shoulder he managed to scramble aboard, lying on the deck gasping furiously just as a young kid might. ‘Well done!’ I called and waited until he sat up and had pulled himself well clear of the edge of the deck. ‘Now, Kevin, wait for me. I’m going back to get the knapsack. Just sit, don’t move. Okay?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ he replied meekly. Wherever the little bloke had been brought up as a child, it hadn’t been easy. His tone of voice carried all the hallmarks of regularly enforced obedience.

  I returned to my knapsack, then recrossed the creek, holding it well above my head and finally depositing it onto the deck. I heaved myself aboard and started to remove my clobber. ‘Everything off, Kevin,’ I called cheerily. ‘Time to clean you up, mate,’ I said, reverting to my normal accent.

  I expected the little bloke at any moment to return to his ‘Lissen, sonny boy’ adult personality. We were safely on the boat and I told myself I could deal with a recalcitrant sailor when he had nowhere to go. If it came to a fight, I was too big for him to take on and hope to win. But he remained a small kid, anxious to cooperate for fear of the dreaded cooking pot.

  I got out the kero and some of the cleaning rags Anna had stowed for the voyage together with a couple of worn towels. Kevin ‘ouched’ and ‘aahed’ and winced a fair bit, the kerosene stinging and uncomfortable on his skin. When it was all over I scooped a bucket of water from the creek and soaped him down, rinsing and repeating the soaping three times, each time making him do the same over his pubic area and bum. Finally, I reckoned he was almost good as new.

  The cleaned-up version of Kevin Judge, aka ‘the little bloke’, was no metamorphosis from chimp to prince. His eyes, the whites still very bloodshot, were a tawny hazel colour. His crew-cut hair was mousy brown and his ears appeared too large for his sharp little face. His front teeth overlapped slightly and were somewhat crooked, the sign of early dental neglect. I wasn’t sure how his nose had started out in life because it had been broken, perhaps more than once, and was flattened like a lump of dough pressed into his face. His legs were thin and bandy, an indication that rickets
had probably been present in childhood. In appearance his type is often referred to derogatively as ‘bog Irish’, an undernourished look that was common enough among the working class in post-Depression Australia and that stamps itself indelibly on the adult who evolves from the neglected child. I guessed it was much the same in America.

  Oh, yes — there was something else. On his right hand between the first and second knuckle of each finger was a crude and amateur attempt at tattooing, a single letter on each finger: the first an ‘L’ on his pinkie and, facing outwards, it was followed by the other three letters spelling the word LOVE. Identically, on the fingers of his left hand was the word HATE. He was left-handed so I had to assume that HATE assumed the greater importance.

  The gash on his forehead needed stitching if it wasn’t going to leave a bloody great scar, which wouldn’t add to his good looks. I had no way of stitching it and my only treatment was cotton wool soaked in iodine and a bandage from the first aid kit. I also treated the cuts on his feet and legs with a solution of iodine, and fortunately they appeared fairly superficial.

  ‘I’m hungry, sir,’ the new, clean, white and very battered-looking version of Kevin cried in a plaintive voice.

  I cooked him a bowl of rice and tinned fish and watched him eat it ravenously.

  ‘I think you should lie down, mate, you look pretty whacked.’ He’d copped a bit of sun, although it could have been worse — the cloud cover had increased as the morning wore on and it was now completely overcast, moreover the greasy oil would have effectively protected his fair skin. I gave him a couple of Aspro. Anna had given me three bottles, the only medicine I had in the medical kit except for Epsom salts and iodine. She’d insisted I take all three bottles even though I protested that I hadn’t had a headache in two years. I recall how she’d laughed, ‘Mijn papa, he buys always a big box, twenty-four bottles, for the morning his head and ja, also at night.’ It wasn’t hard to see that the little bloke was completely done in. Still in the nuddy, I took him down below where I made him climb into the double bunk in the forward cabin. Despite the noonday heat, in a couple of minutes he was dead to the world.

  I changed into a spare pair of shorts and climbed up the mast to fix the faulty blocks, greasing them and making a few small adjustments. Then I set about the task of washing his clobber as well as my own, his several times in an attempt to get rid of the oil. But each time they dried they remained stiff as a board. Fourth time around, while badly discoloured, I reckoned they could be worn. I rinsed the blood and sand off the headless bloke’s boots and set them out to dry. They’d be miles too big for the little bloke but along with the wallets and scraps of paper would be further evidence of the atrocity if ever we made landfall in Australia. I gathered up all the wallets and paper and dried them on deck, only giving them a cursory examination. They confirmed that their murdered owners were Australians off HMAS Perth. I would read them more carefully at a later time, I decided.

  My final task was to create a waterproof wallet out of a small square cut from the hem of my stormweather oilskin. Into it I put the triangular envelope containing my precious butterfly, then placed the wallet within the infusion jar and screwed the lid back on. If we sank it would float to eventually turn up on some golden beach fringed with coconut palms where a beautiful young woman, very reminiscent of Anna, would find it and treasure it forever. My imagination was working overtime, no doubt triggered earlier by my evocation of the little bloke turning into soup, simmering away in a huge three-legged cannibal pot. It occurred to me that had we been marooned on some remote beach in New Guinea instead of Java, the threat I’d used on Kevin would not have been an idle one, cannibalism being still practised among some of the more remote tribes.

  Around five o’clock, with the clouds now low and dark with moisture and the air almost overbearingly humid, I gathered everything from the deck and stowed it below. The little bloke lay bathed in a lather of sweat and I had some trouble waking him. Eventually I got him to sit up and made him drink. In all he must have consumed half a gallon of water since the morning and had yet to take a piss. I gave him two more Aspro tablets and he collapsed wearily back into the bunk and in moments he was out to it again.

  I removed my shorts to prevent them from getting wet in the threatening tropical storm and returned to the deck, where I rigged a canvas sheet fashioned into a trough to catch drinking water. Moments later the deluge arrived and I sat with my back against the mast, my face raised to the sky, where I let it all come at me, the hard pellets of rain pelting into my face and skin in a vain physical attempt to wash from my heart and mind some of the ugliness of the day.

  I was dead weary, having been up half the night, but knew that I had to make for the Sunda Strait and be clear of it by morning. I would be forced to remain at the tiller throughout the night, hoping that under cover of dark I could avoid the Jap warships. I felt fairly certain they would have entered the strait prior to mounting the land invasion of Java.

  It was comparatively cool after the storm and so I went down below and climbed into a bunk and fell asleep, to wake an hour or so later in the gathering dusk. Kevin was still completely out to it and I thought to wake him and give him more water but decided against it. I had a fair bit to do and the last thing I needed was a newly personified and recalcitrant K. Judge ‘sonny-boying’ me while I got us under way. I examined the chart and using the dividers and parallel rulers I worked out my position and wrote down the various compass bearings I’d need in pencil, stuffing the note into the back pocket of my shorts. I made myself a thermos of strong black coffee, reheated the rice and a tin of fish, and ate, knowing it would be my last meal for a while. Even though it was not yet dark I lit the kero lamp in the binnacle to illuminate the compass, fearful that even this dim pinprick of light might be seen. As a final touch, knowing I’d have to stay put all night, I brought a waterproof cushion up from the cabin and placed it on the grating at the bottom of the cockpit; seated on it and leaning against the back of the cockpit with my arm resting on the tiller, I would be comfortable enough for the long watch that lay ahead.

  The tide was beginning to recede so I went forward, ran out the jib on the bowsprit and hoisted the staysail, leaving the sheets loose as I was still sheltered by the mangrove trees on both sides of the creek. I’d hoist the mainsail once I was clear of the mangroves and the reef and when I was able to use the breeze that was just beginning to come off the shore.

  The clouds hadn’t cleared after the five o’clock downpour and still hung low and dark on the horizon, threatening further rain. This was a good omen. It would make it much harder to see the Vleermuis with its dark hull and brown sails in the rain-dimmed evening light. Later the clouds would mask the moon, making it even more difficult to spot a tiny boat out at sea.

  I lashed the tiller and using the sweep poled my way downstream, the outgoing tide making it comparatively light work. Once clear of the mangroves I sheeted in the foresails, whereupon Vleermuis started to move gently across the small lagoon and into the passage dividing the reef. Soon enough I started to feel the slight lifting to the sea that told me I was away. I hoisted the mainsail to catch the offshore breeze and unlashed the tiller. Glancing at the threatening clouds I pulled my oilskin coat on. Being wet ashore is one thing, but with a breeze hitting you out at sea it can become bloody cold and miserable.

  Half an hour later it started to rain again, not a thunderstorm but a steady downpour. The sea was starting to rise, the boat coming off the tops of the waves, steeper now, the fall into the troughs deeper, the bow one moment poking into thin air and the next seemingly buried in a trough. I set my course to sail the ten nautical miles to the point where I calculated I would enter the strait.

  Conditions such as these take a fair bit of sailing, as the boat has a tendency to move in three directions: up and down, forward and back, left and right, then twists around its own centre of gravity. In such conditions, except for adjus
ting the sails, I was stuck to the tiller for the duration. The good thing was that I’d have to practically ram a Jap ship to be discovered and so we were reasonably safe. If the little bloke was to wake up with all the movement (Jesus, he’s almost certain to be seasick!), there was precious little I could do to help him. I’d left a canvas waterbag hanging where he could reach it from his bunk. If he started to throw up at least he wouldn’t dehydrate. He was bollocky so thankfully I wouldn’t have to wash his clobber again. But it can become quite cool at sea in the tropics and I’d left a blanket hanging over the end of the bunk. Getting vomit off a blanket isn’t a pleasant task. But one thing was certain — whatever persona emerged after his long kip, if he was sick as a dog K. Judge wouldn’t be making too much trouble.

  The cutter’s shallow draft meant I could safely hug the coast about one mile offshore. With the coastline still dimly visible I set the course west-nor’-west, estimating it would take me three hours, maybe four, to clear St Nicholas Point, when I would set a course south-west through the strait; the wide course would avoid the risk of running into Java or Sumatra. My chart had shown several islands within the strait, and in the murky darkness I would have to rely on the strong current to carry me around them. Well, that was the theory anyway.

  I crossed the mouth of Bantem Bay where the weather had turned blustery with frequent squalls hiding the shore. But when one such squall abated, to my consternation I saw my first Japanese warships — two troop carriers with their lights on close to shore, unloading troops and supplies. The moon was only just up, and coming from behind a cloud it suddenly brightened the shore and I could see their landing craft pulled into the shallow water beyond the beach. To show lights at night could only mean they were confident that they’d routed the American and Australian naval forces. I was grateful when a few minutes later another rain squall arrived. If I could see them, particularly when the moon showed through the cloud, then they might be able to see me, although with all their activity directed towards the shore they were probably too preoccupied to worry about watching the open sea. Whatever, I now knew the Japs were well and truly present. It was going to be a long night at sea.