A bird explodes and flaps in a low trajectory along the creek. Something moves in the dark place behind it. I backtrack into the shadows. A sudden injection between my eyes. Pinp.r.i.c.ks around the collar of my blouse, on my ankles, my hands. Mosquitos. I'm not even aware that I'm stumbling, one eye still on the far bank, when I back into something solid and my chest seizes.

'What the h.e.l.l are you doing?'

'I have to get out of here!' I push past him, maddened, dozens of erratic sewing needles piercing my exposed skin.

I've never been so glad to see the blurry, windblown eye of the sun burst through the fast clouds and glint on the grey granite rock. The wind has suddenly dropped to the point where just a few high branches quiver. The air's ears are still ringing, though. A high, almost-inaudible screech, more felt than heard, now moving out to sea.

I tell Percy what I heard, what I thought I saw.

He's unimpressed. 'Probably a goanna. They get pretty big. Or a snake.'

'I thought maybe the blacks.'

My fear sounds ridiculous now that the sun has returned. Broad daylight. Humid yellow poured over everything.

'There's none on the island as far as I know. And if you're so worried about them, why did you take off on your own, without a gun?'

Why, indeed.

We walk back towards the house. Already, the bites itch intensely. I know if I don't cover myself in the mix from the bottle on the shelf - lavender oil and citronella - I'll have infected sores all over me in a few days. Bits of palm leaves and other vegetation - detritus of the squall - crunch under our feet.

'How did you know I was here?' I ask.

'I went to the house. Your sister told me. She watched which way you went from the door.'

As though she cared what might happen to me.

'I could strangle her sometimes.' Relief's loosened my tongue. I look up at his profile. He turns, and counters my stare.

'Why did you bring her here if she annoys you? It's no place for a young girl, especially an attractive one like your sister.'

I reach out and stop him with my hand. 'What's that supposed to mean?'

But he has no intention of answering. At least, not yet. His hands dig deep in his pockets. He stares straight ahead.

'Have you heard from Roberts?' I ask.

'No.' He pulls his pipe out, looks at it. 'But the shipment's not until next month. Have you been up to Cook's Look?'

'Yes. Bob's shown me the flag box.'

'Well, then. It must be time for me to show you the lantern, and how to signal with it. As soon as Watson takes himself off somewhere.'

Something catches my eye down on the waterline. Two young Kanakas, dressed only in loincloths, drag their legs awkwardly through the shallow water. I can't make out what they're doing. Dancing? Some slow waltz that requires no partner?

Percy follows my gaze. 'There's a piece of fish stuck between their toes,' he says. 'When a sandworm sticks its head out, they grab it between two fingers and pull it out of the sand. They use the worms for bait.'

'Clever.'

'It's all about enticement,' he says. 'Sandworms to the fish. Fish to the sandworms later on, when they're dangling on a hook. And, finally, a man's mouth to the fish.'

I have a feeling this isn't a nature lesson. 'What are you trying to say?'

'Your husband has a weakness, Mrs Watson. A soft spot for pretty young girls. By bringing your sister here, you're dangling something irresistible between your toes.'

'I don't believe you.'

His voice is calm and cold. 'I don't care if you believe me or not. It's no saddle off my horse what happens to her. She's your sister.'

30.

Every stumpy has a story.

From the secret diary of Mary Watson 17TH JUNE 1880.

It's been another week of sulky weather. A bl.u.s.tery wind from the east, rippling the skin of the waves as it tries to push them back to sea.

Every time I look at Bob, I see him through Percy's eyes. Every time Bob looks at Carrie, I feel sick.

Coming on dusk. Sky coloured like the flesh of an orange, with white streaks of pith. The axe blade lifts, falls, splinters the chunks of mangrove wood. Backlit, Bob's silhouette has found the hard core of air and is cutting it into stringy pieces. The resin's mola.s.ses-pepper tang all around us.

I've deliberately positioned myself on a crate near the house, a few feet away from the chopping block. For want of something to say, I mention that I've noticed one of the Kanakas is missing his arm below the elbow.

Bob looks up, sweat on his tortoise-sh.e.l.l forehead. 'Aye. A slug boat's often got a stumpy. Tomahawks go astray.'

'Is that what happened to Porter's fingers? A loose tomahawk?'

'Aye, but not on Isabella; a boat he used to work on.'

The axe falls again. A piece of sap-bleeding wood ends up six inches from my feet.

'Watch it.'

I'm kneading bread dough in the bowl between my legs. It's been oppressive in the gaps between the wind's tantrums. Strange for the season. The air's yeast has been rising all afternoon. I punch down the swelling stomach in the bowl. Hear the broken air pockets collapse with a satisfying burp.

Bob picks up another piece of wood and sits it carefully on the block.

'How do they keep working, these stumpies?' I ask.

The axe descends. He straightens, just stiffly enough so I know his back is still bothering him. 'Hands are easy to replace with hooks. Now, an ear or a nose ... like Nosy Ned, sliced right off ... Ye can't build a new honker out of spit and bailing wire.'

I roll the worms of dough still clinging to my fingers downwards into the bowl, wipe my hands on my ap.r.o.n and stand. 'How could you accidentally chop off your own nose, no matter how drunk or stupid you were?'

His head turns briefly towards me. 'I didn't say they were by mistake. And I didn't say they did it themselves.' The axe comes down on the neck of the wood. 'We'll go fishing tomorrow,' he adds. 'Come h.e.l.l or high water.'

'Who will go with you? Percy? Porter?'

He looks sideways, mistaking my curiosity for anxiety at being left alone. 'Aye. Porter's always with me on Isabella. Fuller will be taking Petrel. Ye'll be all right. Ah Sam and Ah Leung will be here.'

Dinner's over. Carrie's writing a letter home under a lamp in the corner, her tongue peeking from the side of her mouth. Percy's playing solitaire at the table. Porter's sewing up a sail, forcing a large needle through a leather brace and into the canvas. Bob's spent half an hour teaching me the meaning of each flag in the box on Cook's Look.

'Now tell me once more,' he says.

I look over his shoulder and into the dark corner. 'Red diagonal cross, white background: I'm in trouble; need help. Yellow background, solid black circle: will you be back before nightfall?'

'How would I answer affirmative?'

'Blue, red and white stripes.'

'Negative?'

'Blue and white checks.'

'What if we're on a good patch and are going to stay overnight?'

'You'll hoist the blue background with white diagonal cross.'

'Good.' Bob pushes back his chair. It sc.r.a.pes a little cloud of dust from the dirt floor.

Porter glances up from his labours. 'You've got yourself an attentive pupil there, Bob.'

Percy's hand stills on the cards for a second, then he continues his slow unpeeling.

Carrie dips her fountain pen in the bottle of ink. 'You won't have to run up a flag though, will you, Mary?'

'I hope not.' I stand up and gather the last of the dinner dishes.

The island outside is unremarkable: a furled flag in its dark box.

The next day, I hear him whistling at first light. Looping the thin filament of sound from one end of the still-dark house to the other. Casting out his net. Finally, I give in to the inevitable and swing my feet over the bed that Percy's made for Bob and me out of mangrove wood. It's utilitarian: four posts, and rough slats to rest the mattress on. But it's better than sleeping on the floor.

I pull myself groggily into routine. Ah Sam's in the cookhouse, the tea already steaming in pannikins. I yawn as I wander out to take one, and notice the liver spots on the back of his hand. I decide he's older than I thought initially. Perhaps sixty, but strong and agile nevertheless.

Outside, salt vapour in my nose. A few yellow-breasted sunbirds land to peck with their black beaks the crumbs of damper I threw out for them last night. Bob's already striding down to the beach. The sun on the water in front of him like a fuzzy layered pearl with a crimson sh.e.l.l around it.

I blink and run fingers through my hair. The sea air has made it coa.r.s.e and wiry, like the saltbush that grows all over the island. If it weren't for Carrie - a constant reminder of the beauty I lack - I could abandon vanity altogether in a place like this.

'No squall today, Ah Sam?' I ask as he steps out to empty the tea slops.

'No squall today,' he says with some authority.

Close to sh.o.r.e, Isabella and Petrel dip like dancers bowing to each other across the water. The Malo Island Kanakas wade through the shallow swell, carrying out hessian bags to store the slugs. The one-armed man has a tangled lump of shark hooks on the ends of pieces of weighted lines to drag the filled bags of slugs to the surface. I'd thought, somehow, that these Islanders were mute, not having heard them utter a word. But now they're talking to each other in their own tongue. Even from sixty yards away, the sound carries. Deep, dry voices, like wagon wheels on a hard-packed road.

Bob's pushing his legs through the water, heading for Isabella. I hear him yell something to Percy who's walking down towards the beach. The high-pitched squeal of some adjustment on one of the luggers, like a squeaky shoe pulled onto a hard foot. Everywhere, day's early dazzle throws down its broken pieces of mirror.

Carrie moves up beside me. She looks at the pecking birds half a yard from where we're standing. 'We'll be all alone when they go.'

'Yes. Just you and your mad sister.'

She hugs herself in her nightdress, her face still crushed with sleep. 'I'm sorry I said that. Mary?'

'Hmm.'

'Did Mama ask you to bring me here?'

I look her in the eye, but briefly. 'Yes.'

I sip my tea, and taste the metallic edge of overbrewing.

31.

Poultry are a good general barometer

for upset.

From the secret diary of Mary Watson 18TH JUNE 1880.

When I go to collect the eggs, the coop's a frenzy of feathers; a churned-up smell of acrid manure and panic.

I call for Ah Sam as he's pa.s.sing on his way to dig another nightsoil pit. There's not much room in the pen; even less when he follows me in, shovel in hand. His body odour mixes with the poultry smells - joss sticks, dried fish. There's a whiff of human excrement still clinging to the spade. I'm reminded of Bob's theory that you need an overdeveloped sense of humour and an underdeveloped sense of smell to appreciate the Chinese. As if a slug fisherman is as aromatic as a rose.

I put my head in the nesting box.

'Careful, maybe snake,' Ah Sam says.

Not oriental smells now, just stale wet straw and blood. A dead chicken slumped in the corner; one of the ducks next to it, mauled and lying on its side. Its chest rises and falls erratically under blood-damp feathers.

'Put it out of its misery,' I say.