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next time I got a chance.
Which wasn't now.
Grass skirts and flowered leis were being passed out. Bonfires and torches were
already being lit down on the beach where we'd raced not ten minutes before. On
a raised area, a platform with seats was set up for the island's "royalty,"
namely us.
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Female royalty seemed to consist of only those girls we'd actually laid four of
mine plus Ming Po on Ian's side.
A tourist-style luau was in full swing by the time we got there. Booze was
flowing free, served in coconut shells, hollowed out pineapples and, in a few
cases, the entire rinds of watermelons.
A fair sized "native" band was going and a few dozen girls were doing a hula.
The hula was followed by some sort of all male Polynesian dance which featured a
wide range of grunts and a lot of body slapping almost drumming. It was the
first time I'd taken much notice of the men on the island, female distractions
being what they were. The men were the same racial mix as the women. More than
half of them were blond, with a sprinkling of everything else from bushman to
Eskimo. They averaged around six feet tall. They were well muscled, well
coordinated and quick to laugh usually a sign of intelligence. Yet somehow there
was something lacking in them. Character? No, not quite. I had the feeling that
these men were all decent and just.
Over-polished? Perhaps the word I was looking for was over-civilized. . . .
The male dancers were followed by even more violent drumming and twelve ladies
came into the open area before us doing what Barb said was a Tahitian dance,
which involved unbelievably fast hip motions.
On the other side of the platform, Ian was drinking from a small watermelon.
This was another new thing for him. I'd never seen him drinking before beyond a
single glass of wine with dinner. He was pointing at the women dancing.
"Tom, I'll have that one, and that one, and . . ."
I hoped that whatever he was drinking wasn't too alcoholic. Stamina and
perseverance in drinking requires diligence and long training, benefits that Ian
was perforce bereft of. Still, there was only one way of obtaining such graces.
One learns by doing. It was good to see the boy loosening up, if only it was
really the old Ian doing the loosening.
As the "Tahitians" left, huge leaves from some kind of tropical tree were laid
out at the periphery of the cleared area, and dinner was served.
Seven whole roast pigs each slung on a pole between two men were carried out
over the leaves. With a single jerk of the pole, all of the steaming hot flesh
fell to the leaves, leaving the skeleton still hanging from the pole. The trick
worked all seven times, and the cooks got more applause than the dancers.
A few hundred other dishes were brought out there was no apparent distinction
made between servers and guests. Everyone except the "royalty" seemed to have a
well-choreographed part to play. Or maybe it was that these people were just
naturally God-awful cooperative.
Whatever the cause, seven hundred people were served in ten minutes flat.
Ian and I didn't get a wicker platter like everyone else. Anytime we opened our
mouths, some attractive lady wearing flowers, a grass skirt, and a smile rammed
food down our throats. A strange custom, I came close to biting off more than
one dainty finger by mistake.
As the meal progressed, another group of male dancers entered the arena. I
recognized Leftenant Fitzsimmon among them, wearing a flowery cloth around his
hips and a lei around his neck, but still wearing his bashed-up skipper's hat.
He had two dozen men with him. I guessed them to be his crew from theHotspur ,
which ship, with them aboard, was presently still circling the island. They did
a sort of juggling dance, throwing around four dozen razor sharp machetes in a
manner that looked likely to kill somebody, but didn't.
Seeing that crew together and largely undressed, it was obvious that they were
of a different breed of cat than the other men on the island. They were more
varied in size and build, often wiry rather than beefy. They had a much wider
range of facial features, and a few of them were down-right ugly. More than a
few were shifty-eyed, and nothing about them was polished or over-civilized.
Survivors, that's what they were, and my kind of people.
When the dance finished with not a drop of blood spilled, I started breathing
again.
"Hey!" I shouted, then gagged and spit out the peeled grape that Tammy had
stuffed into my mouth.
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"Hey!" I tried again. "Leftenant Fitzsimmon! Come on up and join the royalty!" [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]