Palm Tree Island

by Herbert Strang

Invasion Fails

It was soon plain that we should not be put to the trouble of defence, and we had a hearty laugh at the coil in which the men soon found themselves; for coming pretty close to the shore, they were caught in the current which ran very swiftly through the narrow gap, and despite the desperate efforts which they made with their paddles, the raft, which is at all times a clumsy vessel, was swept along and twirled this way and that, and the men were in such extremity of danger that they ceased to gaze at us, and bent all their energies to prevent the raft from being dashed against the rocks on either side and shivered to atoms. They were carried right through the channel, and pretty nearly to the natural archway, before they got the least control over the raft, and even then they could only manage it enough to steer clear of the sides of the arch, and so win to the open sea. By that time the current had lost the most of its force, and we knew very well that if they paddled out to the left, and made a sufficiently large circuit, they might gain the north side of Red Rock, even with so clumsy a vessel as theirs, and discover our landing-place. However, they had been so greatly discomfited that I was not much surprised when, instead of steering to the left, they allowed the raft to drift past the promontory, and after a little while they disappeared from our sight, having clearly determined to return to the place where they had embarked.

But though this attempt had been so signal a failure, I saw very clearly that we must not be content merely to smile and do nothing, for if they were to take thought and go about the enterprise in a reasonable way, they might very well come to our landing-place some time, and then they might seize our canoe, a loss which we could not contemplate without dismay. Accordingly, Billy and I spent the rest of the afternoon in a very serious talk, the issue of which was that in the middle of the night we descended the rock and launched the canoe, in which we set off, and, rounding the archway, came opposite the lava beach. This we examined as well as we were able by the light of the stars, for there was no moon, but not perceiving what we sought, we paddled on very quietly until Billy told me in a whisper that he spied it on the sandy beach; and there, indeed, was the raft, drawn up above high-water mark, and no one attending it—at least, no one that we could see. We had talked over this point very anxiously, for if they had set a guard over the raft our scheme would be brought to nought; but we both agreed that it would be very unlike them to take this precaution, and, besides, there was not a man of them who would consent to undertake the office of night watchman so far from the hut while the others were enjoying their repose; and so it turned out.

We passed on without landing, until we came to a sort of dell in the cliff, where we knew there grew a great quantity of long grass and rushes. We landed there, and having pulled up many armfuls of the grass, which we did very easily, the soil being thin, we loaded it into the canoe, and then returned to the place where the raft lay. For some little while we waited, listening for any sound that might give token of wakefulness among the men, but hearing nothing, we ran the canoe lightly in shore, and having landed, we carried our grasses and laid them beside the raft. Then we went on further until we came to a patch of thick scrub, where we broke off a quantity of small branches, and these we laid beside our other material, going and coming as quickly as we could.

Making a Bonfire

Our purpose, as you have guessed, was to burn the raft, so that we should not have that to fear again, nor did I suppose the men would make another, for it must have cost them many pangs to break through their indolence to make this one, and if it were destroyed nothing would persuade them to undergo the toil again. We knew, of course, that the raft would be wet, at least on the under side, where it had not been exposed to the sun after they beached it; but in order to assist the fire we purposed to kindle, we had brought some of our candle-nuts and some cocoa-nut shells and husks, which are highly inflammable and would give a very fine blaze. But when we came to lift the raft so as to push our fuel under it, we found that we could not in any wise raise it, for it was bigger than we had supposed from seeing it in the water, and would have needed five or six men to move it, I am sure. However, we set to work to scrape a hollow in the sand beneath it, or rather several hollows, in which we laid the fuel, and we heaped on the top side also a good quantity of cocoa-nut husks. We had taken the precaution to bring a smouldering torch with us, so that we should not make a noise in striking a light; and after we had spied round very carefully to make sure that we were not observed, we crouched down on the seaward side of the raft and blew the torch into a flame, and then thrust it into the fuel, first at one place and then at another. We waited only long enough to see that the fires were fairly kindled, and then we hastened at once to the canoe, and paddled out to sea for some distance. The fire might blaze and burn itself out without being ever seen by any of the men; but it was possible that some of them were awake, and if they were they could not fail to observe the glow in the sky, and then they would assuredly come over the hill to learn the cause of it. It was for this reason that we drew off from the shore so far that we should be outside the circle of light when the raft was fully ablaze.

The night was calm and clear, and the sea so still that we were able to keep the canoe at the same spot with but a touch of the paddles now and then. It was some time before we saw any considerable flames; indeed, we began to fear lest the wood of the raft were too damp to kindle properly, and Billy whispered in my ear, "Don't I wish we had some turps, or some of that pig fat we've got in our cellar. That would make something like a blaze." However, I told him he must be patient, and a little while after the flames burst from beneath the raft and licked the sides, and we heard a mighty crackling, the wood being wet, and at last a monstrous big flame and a thick column of smoke rose up into the sky, and I could hardly restrain Billy from shouting in his joy, he saying to me, in tones much above a whisper, that he had never seen a bigger bonfire, even on Guy Fawkes day, and he thought it must be something like the Fire of London. (I discovered afterwards, when I had time to remember it, that Billy did not in the least know what the Fire of London was, but knew only the phrase; and when I told him that a great part of the city was burnt down in that historical calamity, he asked me whether that was just another of my stories, like Robin Hood.) It was indeed a very fine sight in the blackness of the night, the glow lighting up the long slopes leading up from the beach, and being reflected magnificently in the sea.

About half-an-hour, I should think, from the time when we first kindled the bonfire, we saw some of the seamen hasting down the hill, and the glow striking the barrels of the muskets which one or two carried, I deemed it expedient to withdraw a little farther from the beach, though in truth it was unlikely we could be seen. We lay to again, and observed the men draw near to the fire, some standing about it helplessly, one or two trying to scatter the fuel with the barrels of their muskets; but they could no nothing, the great heat preventing them from coming close enough, and besides, we saw Hoggett pull them away, and heard him cry out to them that they were fools, because they would only spoil the muskets and not put out the fire. And Ernulfus himself could not, I am sure, have cursed us more comprehensively than those seamen then did (you will find his curse in Mr. Sterne's ingenious book), and not merely did they curse us, but they added sundry strange extravagant threats of what they would do to us, some of these things being so horrible that Billy wanted to answer them back, only I prevented him, for besides being merely amused at these big words from men who were perfectly impotent to harm us, I thought that silence would work better for the further acting of my plans.

We stayed until the fire was nearly burnt out, and then got us back to the Red Rock, exceeding pleased at having destroyed the only means, as we thought, whereby the seamen might come at us. Another week ran its course, we remaining quiet in our habitation, cruising a little off the north side in the twilight and early mornings, but not going again to the island. We kept a look-out on it from the vantage ground of the boulders, and once or twice caught glimpses of the men in the copse or on the cliffs, but they did not come near to the rock again, and I own I began to feel a little downhearted, for if they could eke out their food much longer the bread-fruit season would come, and then my plan would be ruined. Once or twice, too, we heard sounds as of chopping wood in the copse, and we thought that the men were after all going to build a raft, which did not give us any concern, for even if we could not burn it, we could prevent them from getting a footing on our fortress. However, it was not a raft, as we learnt one day. We were sitting at our dinner one afternoon, and, as we always did (I forget whether I have mentioned it), we had tied up Little John, who, though a very good dog in many things, could never be taught to know the difference between "mine" and "thine" at meal times, so that Billy said he was afraid the beast would always be a heathen. He had reason enough to know, after a little experience, that his turn to feed would come after us and before the pigs, so that he was accustomed to stand in perfect quietness while we ate; wherefore when on this afternoon we heard him growling very deeply, and saw him strain at his leash, we wondered what was amiss with him.

A Bridge