Something Big

by Ralph Stock

SOMETHING BIG

By RALPH STOCK

IT was necessary for Alfred Cramp to do something big.

He had been engaged most of his life on small affairs—affairs offering a minimum of risk, or none at all—and the time had arrived for him to tackle something really worth while, get out with the spoils, and stay out.

For one thing, he was forty-five, which is "getting on" in the vicinity of Torres Straits. For another, he was far from being popular with a hard-bitten community that worked for a living itself, and expected others to do the same or give an account of themselves. And, lastly, he was persuaded in his own mind that the barmaid at Blaney's had shown him a distinct preference during his last trip to Sydney. True, she was on the plump side, but a comforting soul withal, and that was the corrective for an overdose of the tropics. They would go to Capetown, and after that——

It was at this juncture in his musings that the door of Thursday Island's favourite bar—a semicircular affair with little windows that can be shut against the importunate—swung open, admitting two men unknown to Cramp.

This in itself was enough to arrest his attention. No one had the right to be unknown to Cramp. Furthermore, they were talking about something he had never heard of in his life before. Such matters called for investigation.

"I'm tellin' you it was 'Hellen's,'" thundered the brawnier of the two strangers when their immediate wants had been supplied.

"'Mellen's,'" corrected the other with aggravatingly quiet insistence. "That's what it was—'Mellen's.'"

"You're getting deaf," the gentleman of brawn pointed out with some asperity. ('Too much quinine, likely.) He said 'Hellen's' to me."

"And 'Mellen's' to me. That's his name, isn't it? And the reef's his. What more do you want?"

The large man regarded his companion as though uncertain whether to hit him or to laugh. He laughed.

"Whoever heard of a man calling anything after himself if he's got a girl? 'Hellen's' it was. But what's the odds? He's welcome to his perishin' reef by any name he likes to call it. There's nothing in trocas fishing these days, anyway; and talk about marooned! … Have another."

But Cramp saw to it that the next was his, and in rather less than half an hour he had garnered the following: the two strangers had just come over from Kabaul on their own cutter to see if sandalwooding paid the small man any better than copra. On the way, and where the Great Barrier Reef breaks into a myriad fragments, they came upon one harbouring a white man, or a man who had once been white. He was more the colour of a Kanaka now, and thinner than you'd have thought possible without snapping in half when he sat down. He lived alone in a humpy of coral boulders, eighteen inches above sea-level, on fish, and fish, with fish to follow, and he'd been there about a year—as far as he could remember. Why? Well, he was making a fortune, or thought so, and it was just here that you could laugh or not, according to the way it took you. When the poor devil went there, trocas was worth getting, and now that he'd got it—how many tons, and by what blood and sweat he and Heaven alone knew—the bottom had fallen out of the market, and trocas was worth rather less than its weight as ballast. Could you beat it?

Cramp admitted that he could not, and inquired if the strangers had disillusioned the unfortunate fellow.

No, they hadn't the heart. They offered him a passage to Thursday Island, which he refused, so there he still was—unless he'd broken in half in the interval—piling up an imaginary fortune on a reef in the Coral Sea that he had undoubtedly called "Hellen's."

Here the narrative was interrupted by a further discussion on nomenclature, and Cramp lost interest until the large man took a crumpled envelope from his pocket with the remark that he "mustn't forget to post the poor devil's letter, anyway."

Cramp allowed a few judicious moments to elapse after this revelation, then rose to go. What was his hurry? Why, he must get across to the post-office before the South-bound mail boat left. At the door he paused to suggest in oft-hand fashion that he was prepared to save others trouble by slipping into the box any letters they might want posted.

The large man's gaze wavered for a moment between the glare outside and the brimming glass in his hand, but only for a moment.

Cramp opened the letter over a steaming kettle and read it twice, first to gain a general impression, then to note its salient points. These were diverting.

"Dearest" (they ran)—

"Another six months, and I shall be with you. I'm touching wood as I write, and can hardly believe what I have written, but it's so! If my present luck holds, we shall have enough. We don't need much, do we? Only that bungalow in Rushcutter's Bay, a living, and each other. … Well, it happened this way: as you know, I came here for trocas shell (what they make shirt-buttons out of) and found it; but in the finding I ran (or rather swam) into something that makes trocas look like slag, something—but I won't keep you in suspense any longer—pearls, nothing less! The luggers, for all their fifteen -fathom gear, must have missed Helen's Reef, or thought it not worth bothering about. Anyway, in my lagoon there seems to be a pocket of very old shell at about two and a half fathoms, which I can just manage to reach without bursting. Picture me, then, the colour of a mahogany sideboard (slightly chipped through contact with coral) skin diving for shell like any Kanaka. …

"The excitement keeps you going. Prospecting isn't in it. … The average is extraordinarily high, and, of course, any time I may happen on to one that will put us in the profiteer class at a bound.

"Of course I'm keeping all this very dark. You have to in these parts. The mere rumour of pearls sets the 'beaches' ablaze. We may not have telephones, but news gets about all the quicker for that. You have to be a dog in the manger at this game, and I'm getting cunning in my old age. I have few callers on Helen's Reef, and those who do come see nothing but trocas. I heave all the pearl shell back into the lagoon. Wouldn't some of the buyers weep if they knew it I … As for our little hoard to date, it is quite safe. No one would dream where it is, even if they knew what I was at. Besides, I have a dragon at the door. You remember me telling you in my last letter about Algy? Well, he grows apace, and I'm getting positively fond of the beastly thing. …

"You may wonder at me telling you all this in a letter, but I had to let you know of our good fortune when the chance offered. And there's less risk about it than you'd think. Letters make wonderful pilgrimages in these parts, and hardly ever fail to arrive. You see, we may be a mixed lot, but there's something we hold sacred, after all—especially if it's addressed to a woman.

"Helen, if you only knew, dear, how I. …"

Cramp sealed the envelope so that it was impossible to tell it had ever been opened, and posted it with a clear conscience. He was not the kind to cheat any woman of her glad news.

For the next few days he was busy making arrangements. The Japanese are difficult folk to deal with, but a bargain was struck at long last with the crew of a pearling lugger, and Cramp spent a week of discomfort unrivalled anywhere in the world. It was impossible to sit upright below decks, much less stand. The Japanese are a "squatting" race, and luggers are built for them accordingly. Sleep was out of the question because the Japanese apparently never sleep themselves. Also, it is not very nice to see a diver brought up dead in his suit, heaved overboard like so much bait, and another take his place inside of five minutes.

However, all things end in time, and when—with a permanent kink in his back, and an indescribable odour in his nostrils—Cramp was haled on deck to be shown Helen's Reef, minor disabilities vanished.

There could be little doubt about it. There was the reef, more or less where it should have been; there were the heaps of sun-bleached trocas shell; and there was the humpy to clinch the matter. But what a place! A mere bottle-neck of coral thrust up through the ocean, encircling a lagoon with a disreputable outrigger canoe drawn up on the beach. And not a living thing in sight. Where was Mellen? Why wasn't he on the beach half crazy with delight at the sight of visitors? Had he "snapped in half" according to prediction?

"You after trocas, eh?" The voice of the grinning little Jap who had rowed him ashore broke in on Cramp's reflections.

"Yes—that is, yes," he admitted absently, staring at the desolation about him.

"Plenty trocas all right," chirped the Jap, and set off for the lugger.

"Hi, there!" bawled Cramp. "Wait while I have a look round. This may not be the reef. I——"

But Japanese divers do not wait. They have too much to do. In this case their contract to dump a crazy white man where he wanted to be dumped had been carried out to the letter, and they were naturally anxious to get on with their more reasonable affairs.

Cramp watched the dinghy, and the brown smile it contained, inexorably propelled towards the lugger, then shouldered his dunnage and tramped through blazing sand to the humpy.

He had often rehearsed in his mind what he was going to do at this juncture, and that is probably why he never had a chance to do it. At first he thought Mellen dead—a brown skeleton a-sprawl on a camp bed—and was considerably startled when a low, clear voice demanded:

"Who are you?"

"My name's Cramp," he answered, "and——"

"What do you want?"

It was a perfectly simple question, and had been answered with equal simplicity at rehearsal, but Cramp must have been suffering from a species of stage fright. The man's eyes—grey and unnaturally bright—held a peculiar quality of penetrative suspicion.

"It seemed to me there was plenty of trocas about," Cramp began.

"There is," came the quiet rejoinder, "but the bottom's fallen out of trocas. Hadn't you heard?"

"No."

"Well, it has. Where are you from?"

"Thursday Island. I came on one of the luggers."

"Is she here now?" Mellen tried to raise himself, but failed. "They may have some quinine—and biscuits; that's what we want."

Cramp explained that he had brought both.

"You've been pretty bad, haven't you?" he added.

"Touch of fever," Mellen admitted, "but that's passed. I'm picking up now."

It looked like it! The man was dying—would have been dead days ago but for his amazing vitality. No time must be lost.

There were relapses during which Mellen wandered, but he never wandered interestingly. It was all about "Helen," and "that bungalow in Rushcutter's Bay," and once he seemed perturbed because "Algy had not been fed for over a week."

You can sometimes ask a delirious man questions and he will answer, but Mellen never did. He seemed to have a tap in his mind permanently turned off on certain subjects whatever his condition.

There followed a period of pitiable weakness, after which Mellen actually did begin to pick up. He was able to lever himself into a sitting position.

"You've about saved my life," he told Cramp on one of these occasions, adding in the cynical way he had: "I wonder why."

It was on the tip of Cramp's tongue to tell him. and have done with the business, but frankness being entirely foreign to him, he refrained, only to regret that he had refrained, and institute an open attack the next day. It was the only method possible with a man of Mellen's description, Cramp decided desperately. He had been alone with his victim for a week, and learned nothing. There was no prospect of learning anything from a man who for the most part spoke in monosyllables, and looked at you as Mellen did. Fresh forces would have to be brought to bear while conditions were propitious. Cramp squared his shoulders and took the plunge with a proper pride in his own hardihood.

"You asked me yesterday why I saved your life," he suggested gravely.

"I wondered, that's all," said Mellen.

"Why? Isn't it usual to save a man's life if you can?"

"For some people, yes."

"But not for me."'

"Frankly, I shouldn't think it was."

This annoyed Cramp into positive daring.

"Well, frankly," he mimicked, "and in your particular case, you're right."

Mellen merely inclined his skull-like head, and allowed the faintest possible smile to twitch his lips.

"Now you're going to tell me why you came here," he said.

"I am," returned Cramp. "I came for your pearls."

Mellen stared straight before him for a moment, then turned his head aside as though his last vestige of faith in humanity had departed.

"That's the first letter I've ever had go astray," he muttered wearily.

"It didn't," said Cramp. "They—it was posted."

"By you? Thanks. I hope you enjoyed the sloppy bits."

"I didn't trouble to read them," said Cramp. "They were none of my business."

"That's considerate of you. The rest was your business, eh?"

"Yes. This reef isn't yours."

"Who said it was?"

"I mean it's common property. What's to prevent me coming here if I want to?"

"Nothing. You came. And if you want to skin-dive for pearls you're welcome to the job. I'm finished."

"And so are the pearls."

"No, I don't think so. The pocket of shell is wider than I thought at first, but I'm done with it. I want to get out of here alive if I can. So there you are, Mr—er—Cramp. I'm making you a compulsory present of promising shell at two and a half fathoms. Is that good enough for you?"

"I can't swim," said Cramp.

Mellen smiled at this. It seemed to amuse him.

"I see," he observed cheerfully. "You've really come for my pearls."

"That's what I said at the beginning," Cramp pointed out.

"Of course. Excuse my dullness. Just common theft, eh?"

"If you like to call it that." Mellen's eyes ranged the room and came to rest on Cramp.

"Well, fire ahead," he suggested. "You'll have to find them, of course, and you can hardly expect me to tell you whether you're hot or cold."

"I'm not going to find them." Cramp moistened his lips, the first sign of nervousness he had shown. "You're going to tell me where they are."

"Oh, am I?"

Cramp felt his heart skip a beat as he took the revolver from his pocket. He was not used to drastic methods.

"And you can put that away," Mellen advised him, "because if you take everything I've got, I'd just as soon be shot, anyway."

That was so. Cramp had been prepared for it.

"Then the only thing is to make you tell me," he said in a voice hardly recognisable as his own.

"I'm afraid so." Mellen lay staring at the roof, then rolled on to his side, presumably to get a better view of Cramp

"You're a pleasant sort of fellow, aren't you?" he suggested amiably.

Cramp had been dreading this. He was not built for it. Happily, few men are. A sort of inverted courage is necessary to do what he was driven to do now, and courage was not his strong point.

He had brought some liquor with him, which he drank. He grew talkative. He tried to emulate Mellen's airy fashion of dealing with vital matters. Two could play at that game.

"There's one thing I didn't quite savvy in your letter," he confessed, drawing his chair closer to the bed and grinning sheepishly. "What's 'Algy'?"

Mellen laughed as loudly as his physical condition allowed, then fell silent. He seemed to be thinking.

"It's something alive, anyway," added Cramp. "You were raving about not having fed him for over a week."

"It's extraordinary how attached you get to anything in a hole like this," mused Mellen. "But don't let Algy trouble you. He's a joke."

"Well, I'll have to get to business," said Cramp briskly.

"Yes. Won't you have another drink to hearten you?"

Cramp had rather hoped Mellen would say something like that. It made it easier. The fellow was laughing at him. He should be made to see that it was no laughing matter to stand between Alfred Cramp and "something big."

How Cramp ever brought himself to really do anything to Mellen is a secret for ever lost. But he did—more than once. The whole affair wavered between broad farce and the grimmest Grand Guignol for something like a day and a night. Even at the last Mellen was quite cheerful about it. He snapped with amazing good grace.

"That's that," he confessed, while Cramp leant over him sweating from sheer horror at his own action. "They're in a tobacco tin—tied to a stone—at the bottom of the only rock pool on the east side of the reef."

"If you're lying——" snapped Cramp.

"What would be the good?" returned Mellen wearily. "I'd show you if I could, but—but you've rather taken it out of me, and you can't make a mistake. The pool's only four foot at its deepest, and the tin's plumb in the middle. You can see it—if you're looking for it. Run along now. I think I'm going to sleep——"

Cramp literally fled from the scene. He found the pool without difficulty. He saw the tobacco tin, and waded out to it. But what he did not see was a five-foot-long tentacle writhing from under a coral ledge. Indeed, it is doubtful if it would have availed him much if he had seen it.

"Algy" had not been fed for over a week.

*⁠*⁠*⁠*⁠*⁠*

As Mellen explained on the verandah of the bungalow in Rushcutter's Bay, he was genuinely sorry for Cramp, but what else could he have done?

For answer, his wife was in the habit of rolling up his sleeve and kissing the scar of a slight burn on his forearm.