what we do out here,’ she said. ‘Look after one another.’
As the sulky pulled away, Cooper shaded his eyes with the flat of his hand and squinted at the iron shed. The sun was a bastard. He patted his jacket and reassured himself that his contract was still safe inside. He was anxious to discuss it before finally signing on the dotted line. Funds were running low and he wanted to know when he could get out to sea. Reaching into his pocket, he brought out the items he needed to roll a fresh cigarette and turned towards the foreshore. For as far as he could see, luggers lined the beach. Sid was right. There must have been several hundred hauled up onto the sand, their masts stripped of rigging like dead trees. He had expected the boats to be bigger. Loaded up with diving equipment and supplies, there would be scant room for all nine members of the crew. He shook his head. Sid had probably made the numbers up, and anyway, what was a little discomfort when a fortune was out there to be made?
The beach was teeming with sturdy, short-legged men, trousers rolled up, crawling over the boats. Repairs and maintenance of the fleet was in full swing and Miss Montague expected him to keep out of the sun? All of them, from their heads to their calf muscles, were burned brown. He took a last drag on his cigarette, crushed the butt beneath his heel and set off down the path.
Captain Sinclair spoke like a machine gun in brittle, strident bursts. A one-man firing squad.
‘So, Cooper. Good news. I’ve just had a cable from New York. Our last shipment of shell sold for three hundred pounds per ton. A record price. Where’s John Butcher?’
‘He may be a little late.’
‘Tarts?’
Cooper shook his head and winced with the movement.
The captain clenched his pipe in his stained teeth. ‘Is he reliable?’
‘JB? He’s the best tender I could hope for,’ Cooper affirmed. ‘I won’t dive without him.’
‘What diving experience do you have?’
‘My years in the Navy. I trained at the gunnery school in Portsmouth.’
He banged the pipe bowl on the desk. ‘We need to discuss your contract. I am supposed to pay you thirteen pounds per month and your tender six pounds.’
Cooper dipped his head in agreement. ‘That was what we were offered to leave England.’
‘Thing is, Mr Cooper, for a month I can get a Jap diver for three pounds, a Malay for two pounds, and a tender comes at about one pound. I’ve already paid twenty-four pounds for you and your John Butcher just to get here from England and I have no idea if you can find shell. What guarantee can you give me of return on my investment?’ Captain Sinclair’s face was unfriendly.
‘I don’t see how we can fail, sir. The Navy’s finest has trained us. If the Asiatic can come here and make a success of it you have my assurance, Captain Sinclair, that a Navy man can do better.’
Maitland threw back his head with such force he almost toppled over backwards in his chair. ‘You pompous arse! You’re not in a position to assure me of anything! Do you know what shell looks like, Cooper?’
Cooper had assumed it would be obvious to spot. He hadn’t considered it an issue.
‘Come with me.’ Sinclair led him to the adjacent packing shed and plucked a half-shell from a sorting bin. The mother-of-pearl glinted in the sunlight.
‘This is what you are diving for.’ He tapped the shell. ‘But this is not what you will see. It’s a different thing when it is lying on a tidal bank at twenty fathoms down. It’s the colour of the sea bottom. It takes a top Jap diver a number of years to become proficient at spotting the stuff by himself, and you are a novice on contract for twelve months.’
‘I thought we were to dive in pairs to begin with. To learn the ropes.’
‘I’m not sure that you quite understand the situation, Cooper. To take you on, I shall have to lay off one of my experienced Japanese divers. The Japs are getting demanding. They can afford to be. They know they are the best and won’t sign on for the season unless they have an advance on their earnings. That way, if they croak – and lots do die – they have something to send home. I have paid out money to someone who is not going to earn his keep. That, Mr Cooper, is not good business.’
Cooper stared at his employer. ‘Then why exactly am I here, Captain Sinclair? Your representatives in England insisted that all the master pearlers in Buccaneer Bay were on board with the idea that white-manned luggers would be a more efficient and profitable option than the foreign-crewed boats you normally operate. We were told that the Australian government is committed to this belief. All of us have come out here to prove the point. If the sums don’t add up, why have you brought out a boatload of white divers to work for you on the pearl beds?’
The captain folded his arms across his chest and blew out his cheeks. ‘I’m sorry, Cooper, if I sound a little unfriendly. You must understand that from now, until the fleet goes to sea, we are swamped with work. The costs of buying, equipping and running a lugger are crippling. It’s a business of continual risk, and many things can go wrong. It makes us all jumpy. But it is not your fault and not your concern, and I apologise if I have given you the impression that you are unwelcome. I have high hopes that you English blokes will be great and make us all a pile of cash. Then we will be able to send the foreign crews back to where they came from. You mentioned just now the possibility of learning the ropes before you put out to sea properly after the Wet. How would it be if you spend the next few days working with Squinty?’
Cooper wondered at the sudden change in attitude, but money was money and he was running short. ‘Sounds good if you’re going to pay me. I don’t work for free.’
‘How about ten bob a week?’
Cooper looked at his boots. ‘Rent’s thirty bob a week at the Seafarer’s.’
The captain shook his head. ‘I must be out of my flaming mind. Thirty bob, then, till the Wet’s over.’
When Cooper nodded, the captain added, jutting out his chin, ‘Go outside. I’ll send Squinty to you.’
‘How will I know him?’
The captain looked Cooper in the eye. ‘Take a wild guess, mate.’
Cooper left the packing shed with a sigh. It was marginally cooler outside but his ears still seared. He shaded his face with his fingers. It was now mid-morning and the sun was hot enough to blister paint. There was also a slimy heaviness in the air that made breathing a chore, and fat black flies were queuing up to suck the salty moisture from his eyes and mouth. He flapped them away irritably.
He could see the tide was on the turn.
A young Malay – who could not have been more than twenty – picked his way across the hot sand, barefoot and saronged. He wore a chain round his neck on which hung a studded leather pouch, which swung from side to side as he walked. ‘You Cooper?’
‘Everyone calls me Coop. You Squinty?’
The Malay nodded, his eyes rolling in different directions. ‘You working with me today. We’s chasing the vermin off luggers. But we need be quick.’
‘Tell me what to do.’
‘Okay.
