A few weeks after the mayor dropped his bombshell, Maitland Sinclair sat at the scarred wooden desk in his office and scowled at the wall. Blair’s words had been giving him headaches for what seemed like forever. The venture had to fail, but on paper he needed it to look above board. It was hot in the packing shed and he was already sweating through his shirt. He had risen early, and on his way to work had dropped by the Black Dog Hotel and eaten a substantial breakfast of fried steak, salted bacon and tinned tomatoes. There were no fresh eggs, which had made him cross. The hotel had run out and was, the Japanese proprietor apologised profusely, waiting for the next steamship from Port Fremantle to top up its larder. Maitland had sworn freely and pushed over the table, refusing to pay the bill.
Now he glanced through the open door onto the mudflats and allowed himself a moment’s distraction. His hands coiled into fists. The girl would arrive on the coastal steamer all too soon from Port Fremantle. He had cabled the steamship, and once in the Bay, she would have a bed to sleep in. What else was there to do? He shook his head to clear the concern. She was a means to an end.
Back to work. He was tallying up the costs he had incurred to take on the white diver, William Cooper. He knew nothing about him, other than he was said to be the Navy’s top man. By the time Maitland had learned that the diver was being dumped on him, there had been no time to write chummy get-to-know-you letters, and now the bloke was about to arrive. Blair was right, though. Putting white divers on the pearling luggers made no financial sense. He had personally had to pay the cost of two third-class passages from England: Cooper had insisted on bringing his own tender with him. Adding in half-wages during the two-month journey for both, he had forked out £24 just to get them to Buccaneer Bay – and he had no idea whether they would be any good at bringing up shell. It was starting to look like a very expensive exercise. He put down his pen and tamped down the tobacco in his pipe. A blob of nicotine dripped from the stem and flared onto his white trousers. He swore under his breath and hurled it to the floor.
What he did know was that Cooper would have to collect a hell of a lot of shell for Maitland to recover his expenses. He had more than a slight suspicion that he would be out of pocket, but if it meant that the government’s white-diver experiment failed, then he supposed a few quid gambled on a good cause was a reasonable investment. He would write the money off against his profits somewhere else. After all, the whole point of living in the back of beyond was not having to play by the rules. Not one official had ever bothered to come to the Bay and police what was going on. And if he managed to pick up a pearl or two along the way, well, he would make a generous donation to the Pearlers’ Association and buy himself a bit more leverage.
He swivelled on his chair and looked out at the murky water. Along the foreshore, the luggers were lined up, hauled up high on the beach by their crews to await maintenance and refits for the start of the new season. The thirty-foot ketch-rigged vessels looked spacious enough on the flat yellow sand, but once the boats were loaded up for the season there was barely room for a man to stand.
He pushed himself up from his chair and shuffled out of his office, lumbering round the back of the building, the momentary shade softening his mood. He picked his way along the crunchy shell path that snaked towards the lighthouse where the track petered out. Towering stacks of empty oil drums and wooden pallets lined his route. The stench of ozone, fish and stale urine was strong as he heaved himself up the steps towards the loading stage of his packing shed.
He heard the familiar sound of tomahawk striking shell from inside the large, corrugated-iron shed. At the entrance, it took him a few moments to adjust from the bright sunlight to the gloom of the interior. At the far end of the shed he saw a huge pile of pearl shell that two Manilamen were processing, squatting back on their haunches, sarongs tucked up between their legs as they sorted the shell into shallow floor bins according to size and condition. The gold-lipped shell sparkled in the light from the open doors as they tossed it through the air. A third man was stencilling letters onto a wooden crate destined for New York, where Maitland sold the majority of his shell to the button trade. Another man, his back to the door, sat cross-legged beside the bin containing the largest shell. Maitland watched him pick out a shell and hold it up, eyeing himself in the shining surface. He stroked the smooth surface with the long arc of his finger and then held it up against his cheek, caressing it like a lover. Something about the intimate gesture rooted Maitland to the spot. He glanced around. When he was sure they were alone, he spoke rapidly in Malay and the other man turned, the shell still pressed to his cheek. They held each other’s gaze and Maitland flicked his head towards the door. The Malay threw the shell back into the bin and scrambled to his feet.
‘I go your office,’ he stammered in English.
Maitland strolled out into the sunshine, a sly smile tugging at one corner of his mouth. The Malay followed behind, dragging his feet in the dust.
THE MORNING WAS SPARKLING blue as the SS Oceanic bumped onto its moorings in Port Fremantle. Soon, Maisie’s six-week voyage from England would be a memory of deck tennis, quoits, concerts and endless meals dodging Mr Smalley’s groping fingers. On deck, a dozen Englishmen gathered by the rail. They stood quietly, facing away from Maisie, looking towards the rotted jetty stumps. Clothed in heavy dark wool suits with white celluloid collars that looked stiff and unfamiliar, most were smoking. One of the men wore his trousers short to his ankles, his fancy patterned socks on display above the toe-pinching shoes. Maisie, sitting on a deckchair next to Mrs Wallace, flexed her swollen feet in sympathy.
A small engine-driven tugboat bounced alongside the ship, jammed with men waving pale-jacketed arms in the air. They were clutching notebooks, some with cameras slung on straps round their necks. The second officer had told Maisie that newspaper reporters would come aboard that morning to the first-class deck and would, regrettably, delay their disembarkation by an hour or two.
A brass band was blaring ‘Land of Hope and Glory’ from the quayside. Maisie caught the whiff of excitement that thrummed through the crowd and leaned forward in her chair on the upper deck to watch the scene. Shading her eyes from the bright sunlight, she saw that the first of the newspapermen had climbed up the ladder and was shaking the hand of Mr Farmount. By the time the tugboat’s passengers were fully on board, Mr Farmount had the twelve Englishmen corralled and a photographer was arranging them, a few seated and the surplus standing behind. There they remained under the unrelenting sun, eyes on the camera box for some time, red patches blooming on tender exposed skin.
Maisie shaded her eyes from the blinding sun and considered for a moment retreating into the shade, until she saw that Mr Farmount had moved closer to the press party.
She patted Mrs Wallace’s arm. ‘I think Mr Farmount is about to make a speech.’
‘Of course he is, dear. It’s why the newspaper people have come. Now pipe down or we shan’t be able to hear what he says.’
Maisie pressed her lips together, her cheeks burning.
Farmount consulted his notes and thrust his redundant hand in a pocket. Maisie saw that he was nervous; his face was spotted with perspiration and his other hand was trembling. He straightened his jacket and cleared his throat.
‘Thank you all for coming,’ he began, his voice just audible against the brass band’s enthusiasm. ‘The gentlemen to my left are all ex-Royal Navy Divers. I am here as their ambassador, and also to represent Siegfried and Hammond – the largest manufacturer of diving apparatus in the world. The company is the sole contractor to the British Admiralty and the Crown Agents for the Colonial and Indian Office.’ He broke off and wiped a handkerchief across his brow.
‘Their arrival on Australian soil marks the end of an era. Our divers are here to prove, once and for all, the superiority of the Britisher over the Asiatic.’ Farmount looked up, his nerves seemingly forgotten. ‘We cannot allow one of Australia’s primary industries to be dominated by a bunch of brown-skinned foreigners! Let the Japanese, Malays and Koepangers