Reefing

Miss Perkins went Reefing

A Short Story by Gib Jewell

LIKE a grotesque impatient bird, lean with hunger and excited by the proximity of abundant food, Miss Perkins bent and searched, straightened and bent again to search among the nooks and crannies of the uncovered coral reef.

She was a tall, angular woman, with the lined and worn face typical of middle-aged school mistresses. A huge, straw hat flopped about her head. She wore a "white sun suit, which sheepishly revealed her gaunt, reddish nakedness.

She carried a large cane basket.

The basket was already heavy with shells and pieces of coral plus several of the more fantastic oddities abounding in the mild, blue waters of the great reef. With squelching sand-shoes, Miss Perkins moved carefully through the lank sea grass, and the mattered seaweed of the shelving pool before her.

And, just as carefully, she placed the dripping basket on top of a tall nigger head on the far side of the pool. It will be alright there for a minute or two, she thought.

Although she had been there many times in her wistful dreams, although she had been lecturing on the reef for years, it was the first time she had ever seen it. It fascinated her. An odd phrase —some half-forgotten undertone, some words she had read or spoken, darted across her eager mind—“A coral reef it self is a great cemetery.’’ No, she cor rected herself, it was: “A great coral cemetery!’’ Fiddlesticks, she thought angrily. She knew, now, how to de scribe a coral reef, especially an ex posed reef like this one, which at low tide was not a pleasant sight.

What had been, a few hours earlier, a living fairyland of vivid colours, of flashing movement, of sparkling beauty, was now a drab brown wasteland. All about her Miss Perkins could hear its curious cracklings and the sucking noises of it, and she knew that although the reef seemed dead and rotting, it was very alive. She could hear a billion whispering voices, feel a billion micro scopic eyes staring at her. Round cold eyes, frightened eyes, fierce eyes, glar ing eyes, eyes that had no bodies, bodies that had no eyes, bodies that crushed to death, struck suddenly, pierced, poisoned, shammed, fought, or fled for very life . . . The rotting reef was alive: there was no cemetery there. She thrilled as the paradox flashed through her mind: The reef was alive alright: It was alive with death!

STIRRED by theses strange thoughts surging through her usually prosaic mind, Miss Perkins looked at her surroundings with a deepened interest.

So avid had been her search for shells that she found, with surprise, that she had unwittingly worked her way almost clear to the outer edge of the reef. Be side her, the shallow pools of the reef gave way to wider, deeper stretches of water, and with a start, Miss Perkins realised they linked with the sea itself.

She gazed incredulously at that whispering expanse of silken water.

When she had first begun her reefing it had seemed so remote, almost miles away. Certainly something that had not to be considered for hours. Now, it was barely five yards away, and she sus pected that it was coming nearer every second.

She turned her head. Half a mile away, the dazzling coral beach, like a ribbon of silver, carelessly thrown at the feet of the green atoll blinked vacantly at her.

There was no movement on it.

The rest of the party had gone.

She was alone!

Quickly she turned in the direction of the rocky point off which she had last seen the Velita. She had seen it half a dozen times that afternoon, floating like a tired seagull on the blue water, but now the white (launch, too, was gone.

Odd fragments of her lecture sprang into her mind (she could hear herself speaking to the hot, bored class room— for years she had been speaking thus, and the words had had no significance.

Now they were emphatic, and real): “In some parts of the Barrier Reef, the tide rises and falls 22 feet!’’

She felt a gentle tugging at her legs, and glancing down, saw the water swirling there, eddying around and be tween her knobby knees. It chuckled as it tugged at her.

With horror the graveness of her po sition struck her. She was alone on the outer edge of a wide reef, and the tide was racing in!

But Miss Perkins did not panic—yet.

She sucked in a breath of air, jutted her phin, threw back her bony shoulders, and reminded; herself that she could easily regain the beach.

But supposing she did, what then?

Had the launch really gone? Was she to be stranded on that lonely little atoll? How long would it be before they missed her?

Then her practical, school-teacher mind briskly took command of her roving thoughts. Fiddlesticks, she muttered. But there was no time to lose. Already the drab, exposed reef was littered with little pools shining like a shower of new silver coins. Best get moving, she told herself.

HER hand reached for the basket on the tall niggerhead and clasped in stead the green satin mouth of a tiny clam. The clam spouted like a minute whale. A jet of water geysered into the air; showered over Miss Per kins.

But she did not feel it, or hear it, or see it. She was staring breathlessly a few feet in front of her, into the mur muring water of the rising pool in which she stood. She was staring at some thing that moved there. All thoughts of her loneliness, of the racing tide were forgotten; her shining eyes watching the creeping object.

It was a nearly nautilus, she told her self, half unbelieving. And it was a large one—larger than she had ever seen or heard of; larger than she be lieved possible.

It was walking on its arms, huge shell uppermost.

Miss Perkins’ racing mind fluttered into the future. She did not see the nautilus as it was —crawling, dirty and almost perfectly camouflaged, on the bottom of the pool, a yard in front of her. Instead, she saw it, animal re moved, the shell, cleaned and beautiful, glowing with its lovely soft iridescence, occupying pride of place on the green baize table in her study at St. Anne’s.

She could hear the envious voices of the curious teachers, and pupils too, and her own careless voice saying: “Yes—it’s not too bad. Picked it up on the Barrier last time I was up there.’’

Stealthily, she moved onto the creep ing nautilus. Suddenly her right hand flashed, quick as a bullet, through the clear water. But she was not quite silent, of fast enough. The nautilus sensed the speeding hand, ejected water from its funnel, and shot, jet-like, ahead of the bubbling tracer trail.

Miss Perkins had thrown everything into that suicide dive. With a loud splash, and a despairing gurgle she fell into the three-feet deep pool. She fell on her right hand. Her left hand thrashed wildly over, and with a dis gusted shiver she felt her fingers close round something, soft and slimy, and strangely hard, too. Her first impulse was to release it but her fingers refused her shocked brain’s demand and, as she struggled to her feet, the frightening knowledge that her spectacles were gone and that her straw hat was drifting fast away, was offset by the wonderful feel ing that, there, clutched firmly in her left hand was the huge, dripping, nautilus!

Hair clinging stickily to her head, and the sheepish sun suit, now that it was wet, revealing more of her scrawny figure than it should, Miss Perkins brought the nautilus close to her eyes.

She examined it carefully. It was a beauty! It was perfect!

But her feeling of triumph was short lived. Now that her glasses were gone, a feeling of helplessness came over her.

The loss of the hat made itself felt too —the late afternoon sun beat on her exposed head, and the glare almost blinded her. Now, faintly afraid, she peered in the direction of the beach.

There was a shining expanse of water, about 30 feet wide, between herself and the now blurred remainder of the ex posed reef. She could see the beach but vaguely. It seemed a mile away.

The creeping water was sucking at her legs where she stood. It was already three inches above her knees, and the tug of it was more urgent than before.

The silken water had silently surrounded her. There was no escape.

(Continued on page 56)

A sob came from Miss Perkins.

Clumsily she forced her way through the swirling tide to the niggerhead. It was slippery at the base, and climbing it with the use of only one hand was not a pleasant task. She was torn and bleeding freely from a dozen jagged cuts before she reached its top. But she still clutched the nautilus firmly in her left hand.

She stood there. Trembling with ex haustion and fear she swayed. One leg shot out sidewards as she struggled to regain her balance. Her foot struck the basket which sprang into the air. Its contents showered away from it, as it smacked into the hungry sea. For a second it whirled in an eddy, then, half submerged, bottom up, it rushed away with the tide towards the island.

Miss Perkins was very afraid now. She peered about, her aching eyes frantic with fear. There was nothing but the ever-expanding sheet of water. But after the first frightening rush of the tide it seemed to rise much slower. As she watched the level of the sea creep up, she realised what a fool she had been not to have tackled the long wade to the beach instead of climbing the niggerhead.

Maybe there was still time, she thought. If she dived in now, she would have to swim for a while; then she could wade the remainder of the journey.

Placing the nautilus to one side, she bent and unlaced her sandshoes. She tied the laces together, and placed the joined shoes so that she carried them one each side of her neck. They would be necessary when she was wading. Even as she placed them about her neck, she noticed the nautilus. It was slowly moving towards the edge of the niggerhead.

Alarmed, she sprang towards it, and bent to grasp it. Away went the sand shoes, slithering over her bowed head.

They hit the niggerhead, and bounced off it into the swirling sea. Miss Per kins, nautilus in her hand again, watched them weave their way through the clear water. They zig-zagged down.

They had almost reached the bottom when suddenly a racing shadow flashed across the path of the shoes, there was a swirl, and they vanished.

Aghast, Miss Perkins stepped back, the razor-edge on the niggerhead sliced deep into her heel and she realised she dared not swim ashore. She felt faint.

She shivered. It was getting cooler.

WITH tropic speed the sun was set ing behind the squat island. Soon it would be gone, and Miss Per kins would be alone in the shadows of the evening; alone in the greedy im mensity of the sea.

It was then that she really panicked.

She began to scream, wildly crying into the approaching evening. Sadly the echo of her piercing sobs floated lazily back from the empty bay. Suddenly at her feet, stinging the gash in her heel, she felt the sea as it whispered over the top of the niggerhead. The burning of the salt in her wound, shocked her from

her hysteria.

There was no hope now, she told her self dully. This was the end. This was it.

Then, suddenly, she thought she heard the faint throbbing of an engine. She held her breath. There it was again!

Hope surged in her heart, and fear too.

She could not see the launch, but from the increasing volume of its engine noise she knew that it was approaching her.

Her hands fluttered down, and even as

she hastily unwrapped the white sun top from her body, even in the extreme urgency of the situation, she blushed.

For a second she hesitated; for a second her prim, spinster mind told her it was indecent, then her hand flashed up waving the white sun-top.

She seemed then to be standing on the darkening surface of the water. Her hair streamed behind her, as her head tossed vigorously with the thrashing movement of her arms. In one hand she waved the sun-top, in the other, the nautilus. It looked as though she were naked.

And over and over she cried, “Here!

I’m here! Come here! Over here!”

Then she saw the shadowv outline of the launch and despair clutched her heart. The launch was not the white Velita, and it was not coming towards her. It was racing past her, away from her! The more she waved, the louder she screamed, and the further the mysterious launch raced away. The wash of it nearly swept her off the nigger head, and for a time all her attention wac required to keep her precarious hold. In her struggle to do so, the sun ton was lost. The launch’s wash sub sided.

Panting, she straightened up. Night was approaching fast, but all feeling seemed to have left Miss Perkins. The reaction from her near-rescue left her numb, an inert mass of shivering fle^h.

She was standing thus, dumblv watch ing the darkening water when the faint beam of the approaching searchlight crept over the water and moved along the beach; left the beach and began to sweep the bav. It lingered on Miss Per kins and then shyly moved away from her.

It became brighter again, as it hesi tantly arched across the bay. Coyly it danced along the water. As it slowly approached Miss Perkins on its return ing sweep, her frozen brain snapped.

This was her last chance, and there was onlv one thing to be done.

This time she did not hesitate. Swiftly .'■he bent and for a moment she splashed in the sucking tide. There was a shower of water, then madly she waved her white shorts above her head.

Now the searchlight became blinding as the launch sped towards her, churn ing the quiet waters of the bay into a seething mass of glittering fish. The sea boiled about her as the dazzled gar fish left the water, jumping blindly. One or two struck Miss Perkins as the search ing light passed over her, but she did not feel them.

Suddenly the light stopped, then, more sure of itself, it returned to her, and held Miss Perkins in its blinding glare, as she stood gaunt and naked, knee deep in the swirling water, waving madly.

She never thought of her nakedness; she did not care. The Velita could have been the Queen Mary, and the ten breathless watchers, ten thousand, for all she cared. She was conscious only of a great weariness., and the wonderful relief that was flooding her dazed mind.

She sobbed a little as they lifted her, blanketed her tired body, and carried her gently to a bunk.

She was asleep before they could give her brandy, but she still held the giant nautilus in her left hand. * * * MISS PERKINS went reefing, and her reefing trip taught three people three separate lessons: It taught Miss Perkins, the school

mistress, the amateur naturalist, proud possessor of the largest-known nautilus shell, never to linger on a reef when the tide is making.

It taught Jenson, the owner of the Velita, the master of trips to the barrier, always to count his heads be fore returning home, and to leave a dinghy handy for the reefers.

And it taught O’Leary, ex-drunken fisherman from the Hull River, the bene fits of sobriety. To his external regret, he had been a little tipsy that never-to be-forgotten evening when he saw the mermaid in Naida Bay. “Sure,” he says excitedly, “there she was all white in the evenin’! Her breasts pointin’ at me, and she wavin’ a piece of seaweed in one hand, and a grinnin’ skull in the other. She was dancin’ as light as a feather on two fathoms of water. I tell you, I’ll niver forget the sight of her.

Niver! She almost lured me onto that bombie there! I swear it’s true! I swear to God it’s true!”

These days O’Leary haunts Naida Bay.

He does little fishing. He never drinks, and he carries a camera. For no one on the Hull River will believe his story.