tin cover off a dish with the air of Escoffier unveiling his latest creation. I looked at the brown sticky mass. I thought I could see rice and shredded coconut.
"What's this?" I asked. "Last week's garbage?"
"Dalo pudding. Very good, sir." He pointed to a chipped enamel pot. "Here is coffee. Also very good." He ducked his head at Marie and left as nimbly as he had come. It went without saying that he shut the hatch behind him.
The pudding was an indigestible and gelatinous mess that tasted and felt like cooked cowhide glue. It was quite inedible but no match for the fearful coffee, lukewarm bilge-water strained through old cement sacks.
"Do you think they're trying to poison us?" Marie asked.
"Impossible. No one could ever eat this stuff in the first place. At least, no European could. By Polynesian standards it probably ranks with caviar. Well, there goes breakfast." I broke off and looked closely at the crate behind the tray. "Well, I'll be damned. Don't miss very much, do I? I've only been sitting with my back against it for about four hours."
"Well, you haven't eyes in the back of your head," she said reasonably. I didn't reply, I'd already unhitched the torch and was peering through the inch cracks between the spars of the crate. "Looks like lemonade bottles or some such to me."
"And to me. Are you developing scruples about managing Captain Fleck's property?" she asked delicately.
I grinned, latched on to my anti-rat club, pried off the top spar, pulled out a bottle and handed it to Marie. "Watch it. Probably neat bootleg gin for sale to the natives."
But it wasn't, it was lemon juice, and excellent stuff at that. Excellent for thirst, but hardly a substitute for breakfast: I took off my jacket and began to investigate the contents of the schooner's hold.
Captain Fleck appeared to be engaged in the perfectly innocuous business of provision carrier. The half-filled spaces between the two sets of battens on either side were taken up by crates of food and drink: meat, fruit and soft drinks. Probably stuff he loaded up on one of the larger islands before setting off to pick up copra. It seemed a reasonable guess. But then, Fleck didn't seem like an innocuous man.
I finished off a. breakfast of corned beef and pears-Marie passed it up with a shudder-then began to investigate the contents of the boxes and crates packed ceiling high between the two outer rows of battens and the sides of the schooner. But I didn't get very far. The battens in those rows weren't of the free-sliding type in the inboard rows but were hinged at the top and were designed to lift upwards and inwards: with their lower halfs jammed by the boxes in the inner rows, this was quite impossible. But two of the battens, the two directly behind the lemonade crate, were loose: I examined their tops with the torch and could see that there were no hinges attaching them to the deckhead: from the freshness of the wood where the screws had been, the hinges appeared to have been recently removed. I pushed the battens as far apart as possible, wrestled the top box out of position without breaking my neck, not so easy as it sounds for the boxes were heavy and the rolling of the schooner pretty violent by this time-and placed it on the platform where we'd spent the night.
The box was about two feet long by eighteen inches wide and a foot deep, made of oiled yellow pine. On each of the four corners of the lid was the broad arrow property mark of the Royal Navy. At the top, a stencil semi-obliterated by a thick black line said 'Fleet Air Arm.' Below that were the words 'Alcohol Compasses' and beneath that again 'Redundant. Authorised for disposal', followed by a stencilled crown, very official looking. I pried the top off with some difficulty and the stencils didn't lie: six unmarked alcohol compasses, packed in straw and white paper.
"Looks O.K. to me," I said. "I've seen those stencils before. 'Redundant' is a nice naval term for 'Obsolete'. Gets a better
"What's this?" I asked. "Last week's garbage?"
"Dalo pudding. Very good, sir." He pointed to a chipped enamel pot. "Here is coffee. Also very good." He ducked his head at Marie and left as nimbly as he had come. It went without saying that he shut the hatch behind him.
The pudding was an indigestible and gelatinous mess that tasted and felt like cooked cowhide glue. It was quite inedible but no match for the fearful coffee, lukewarm bilge-water strained through old cement sacks.
"Do you think they're trying to poison us?" Marie asked.
"Impossible. No one could ever eat this stuff in the first place. At least, no European could. By Polynesian standards it probably ranks with caviar. Well, there goes breakfast." I broke off and looked closely at the crate behind the tray. "Well, I'll be damned. Don't miss very much, do I? I've only been sitting with my back against it for about four hours."
"Well, you haven't eyes in the back of your head," she said reasonably. I didn't reply, I'd already unhitched the torch and was peering through the inch cracks between the spars of the crate. "Looks like lemonade bottles or some such to me."
"And to me. Are you developing scruples about managing Captain Fleck's property?" she asked delicately.
I grinned, latched on to my anti-rat club, pried off the top spar, pulled out a bottle and handed it to Marie. "Watch it. Probably neat bootleg gin for sale to the natives."
But it wasn't, it was lemon juice, and excellent stuff at that. Excellent for thirst, but hardly a substitute for breakfast: I took off my jacket and began to investigate the contents of the schooner's hold.
Captain Fleck appeared to be engaged in the perfectly innocuous business of provision carrier. The half-filled spaces between the two sets of battens on either side were taken up by crates of food and drink: meat, fruit and soft drinks. Probably stuff he loaded up on one of the larger islands before setting off to pick up copra. It seemed a reasonable guess. But then, Fleck didn't seem like an innocuous man.
I finished off a. breakfast of corned beef and pears-Marie passed it up with a shudder-then began to investigate the contents of the boxes and crates packed ceiling high between the two outer rows of battens and the sides of the schooner. But I didn't get very far. The battens in those rows weren't of the free-sliding type in the inboard rows but were hinged at the top and were designed to lift upwards and inwards: with their lower halfs jammed by the boxes in the inner rows, this was quite impossible. But two of the battens, the two directly behind the lemonade crate, were loose: I examined their tops with the torch and could see that there were no hinges attaching them to the deckhead: from the freshness of the wood where the screws had been, the hinges appeared to have been recently removed. I pushed the battens as far apart as possible, wrestled the top box out of position without breaking my neck, not so easy as it sounds for the boxes were heavy and the rolling of the schooner pretty violent by this time-and placed it on the platform where we'd spent the night.
The box was about two feet long by eighteen inches wide and a foot deep, made of oiled yellow pine. On each of the four corners of the lid was the broad arrow property mark of the Royal Navy. At the top, a stencil semi-obliterated by a thick black line said 'Fleet Air Arm.' Below that were the words 'Alcohol Compasses' and beneath that again 'Redundant. Authorised for disposal', followed by a stencilled crown, very official looking. I pried the top off with some difficulty and the stencils didn't lie: six unmarked alcohol compasses, packed in straw and white paper.
"Looks O.K. to me," I said. "I've seen those stencils before. 'Redundant' is a nice naval term for 'Obsolete'. Gets a better
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