Cargo

Short Story:

By Lorna Crouch

HE was an old man and he sat alone on the verandah of his house. The dirty village stretched before him, to the right and to the left of him.

A dozen filthy dogs lay easily in the sun below him, too weak to move much half starved, and sick with running sores.

A few small children played near them.

The old man smiled. They were his grandchildren; fine children, too. His sons worked for the Government and wore white men’s clothing and rode to and from their work in jeeps the Government sent for them.

If he thought of the village in the bush where he dug native vegetables daily and ate fresh fish, he did not think over long. His sons earned good money and always he had tea and sugar and soft white bread, and plenty of it. It was good food white man’s food. A lot of it came in tins, on the ships that came every month laden with cargo for the white man.

He frowned. He remembered the fable that the white man’s cargo rightly be longed to the native man, and that his ancestors put it on the ships. It was the white man who always went on board first and changed the names on the cargo from theirs to those of the well-known stores. True. It came to their land. It was theirs. And so it was right that they were now getting some of it. But the Government made you work for it.

One day it would not be necessary to work. Thousands were waiting for the day when the native would find himself master of the magic that produced ships from the far horizons filled with this good cargo for Papua.

AS he pondered a smartly-clad young white woman walked through the village. She was smiling. She turned towards the shore. She saw a motor-boat speeding across the harbour, churning the water into a foam. Two native canoes, the wind filling their sails, were also racing. In a moment there was a collision. . Screaming, the girl dropped her head m her hands. “Jim!” she called. “Jim, oh Jim!” nat i v .es were swimming about.

Then the white man came up from under neath his boat, and struck out for the shore. He swam well, and reached the shore before the natives. The girl ran to him.

“I saw you coming and I came to meet you. I had lunch with Joyce. I saw you from her verandah. But this is awful!”

He only laughed. “I sold it this morning to some native chaps who live in this village. They paid the money to me in cash. It’s their funeral not mine!”

“Will the boat be damaged?” She walked beside him up the road towards the town. They turned and watched the bottom of the sunken boat sway about on the reef.

An old man hobbled down the road. He was gesticulating. They could hear a few of the words he spoke in broken English.

“You Mr. Roland? You bring my boys’ boat? No good! No good!” he shouted.

“Better get out of here, Cecile. He must be the father of the men. He was evidently exoecting me.”

“Oh, quickly, then.” The girl was trembling. Dozens of natives were run ning up and down the road between them and the old man Suddenly a jeep appeared. “Thank Heaven!” Jim said as he assisted Cecile on board. “You’re here just in time,” he said to the white man. “Thought I was about to be hung, drawn and quartered!”

They climbed in. The jeep sped on to wards the town.

IT was night. The boys had cleared the large dining room and turned off the lights.

Jim and Cecile sat on the verandah of their friend’s house. “Stop worrying about that boat. You may be sure with all those natives they would soon have it fixed. I told the police what happened and then I told the men to whom I had sold it.”

“They didn’t like it, did they?” The girl was still nervous.

“No. But it wasn’t my fault, and that old man looked mighty dangerous. They might have frightened you badly if I hadn’t got away then. Just you think about the two hundred pounds I got for it.

We’ll be able to go South soon, for our leave.”

IN the village, by the light of the moon, the men sat around the old man in his grimy chair. They listened to him. He had seen much of the country.

“The boat is no good. The money is ours by right.” He kept repeating it until it sank into the stimulated minds of the betel-nut chewers. They started to shout. They became silent again.

“It is time,” said the old man, “It is time, the white man shared his secret with us. I have had a dream. J dreamt that this house was filled with money and we bought all the things from the stores that we wanted. My ancestors told me in the dream that all the money in Papua rightly belongs to us, to us!” His voice reached a high pitch in the cres

cendo of his excitement. “Why does the white man get his cargo without working for it?” He bent forward in the moon light, an unearthly look upon his wrinkled face, his eyes gleaming.

No one moved. The dogs slept. The small crowd of men and women, sitting on the ground, seemed transfixed. Across the road, a ukelele tinkled, and some girls, their grass skjrts swaying, linked arm in arm, wandered past, singing. One of the listening men snook his head.

“That is old talk, Noe; that is old talk.

They talk like that in the far villages, but it is not true. I know. I have been to school.”

No one took any notice of him, and he slowly stretched himself and went away. The old man continued to talk.

More betel-nut was passed around.

Cargo, and the white man’s secret of how to get it! So much tinned food. So many clothes. Cars. Trucks. Blankets ‘‘My boat is no good!” The cry came suddenly from the back of the crowd.

“Where is my money? The money that belongs to me?” The old man’s talk at last had its effect on the young man in the white trousers and shirt, and boots.

“I go to get my money!”

In a flash he was gone. The others stared after him. The moon waned and gradually the village fell asleep. In the early morning, a native slinped through the back of the village to avoid the ever watchful police-boys on the road. In his pocket was £2OO in notes. The white man sleeps deeply, he thought. And his money is easy to find.

WAKING to a tap on the door of his room, Jim stretched himself. Cecile was still asleep. She looked pale.

The leave South would do her good The boy brought in the tea. Jim moved his clothes from the table beside him to make room for the cup. He patted the pocket book in the pocket of his shirt. He would have to pay that money into the bank at once. It felt thin He opened it. The notes had gone.

He sat there for a time, dazed. No leave! He hadn’t a record of the numbers of the notes. In disgust he threw the empty book on the floor.

They spent a month waiting for the coastal boat to take them back to the plantation. He now had no money for leave. The natives had been too quick for the police this time.

In the cool of the morning Cecile and he sat in deck chairs on the verandah.

One of the European police came smartly up the steps, “I’ve a surprise for you!” he said as he removed his hat and sat down with them. A faint wave of hope swept Jim and then, as quickly, faded away. He watched the officer’s face, Cecile was smiling at him. Something had happened. She felt sure of that.

“We’ve something to show you at the police station.’

“The thief?” Jim spoke quickly. “Surely not!”

“No. The notes.”

“Notes?”

“Yes.” The officer laughed. “But they are forgeries. We knew some had come up from North Queensland and we’ve been on the look-out for them for some time. The notes that native paid to you were forgeries.” His fingers drummed a cheerful tattoo on the small table top.

“Heaven knows where he got them from.

He won’t tell yet. But he’s the man who bought your boat. He tried to get rid of them yesterday. They’re your notes. They’ve been soaked in salt water.

He’s practically admitted he stole them from you. The motor boat is yours again.

I happen to know she’s in good running order.”

The old man sat in his chair and watched the children and the dogs play beside the straggling village path. He was ashamed. The police had put his son in gaol. What did the white man want with money? It was bad, anyway.