# Where are you, Marie?



## Cpt Dick Brooks (May 13, 2013)

The brooding island of Fatu Hiva approached on the port bow, it's peaks reaching up into the sky like out-stretched fingers from the mire. They steamed and smouldered as if they'd just been thrust up from the indigo depths of the ocean floor, over two miles below. Brown and black outcrops of bare rock broke through the dense canopy of vegetation covering them, and ancient orchards dotted their slopes.
As the ship drew nearer, groups of white goats could be seen moving about the sheer cliffs, which rose straight from the sea. They clung on to the clefts in the rock, no larger than finger-holds. Seabirds screeched around them, their cries echoing back out to sea from the vertical face of the wall.
The swell was gentle now, being under the lee of the island, and they broke in a lazy whoosh against the jaggered crevices. Small caves and inlets were cut into the cliffs by the continuous action of the sea, their voids acting as a sounding board.
Debut turned to port, and the Bay of the Virgins opened out in front of us. A cluster of small white yachts huddled in it's shelter, like chicks trying to squeeze under the protective wings of a brooding hen.
The sheer walls of rock enfolded the approaching ship, her paintwork rusted and salt-stained from her long passage across the Pacific Ocean. The crew stood about her decks, looking at the island, and pointing out it's wonders.
A tunnel led beneath an arch in the cliffs on their starboard beam, to the calm waters of a bay on the other side. Hanavave Valley led up to a ridge of mountains in front of us, which ran north to south down the island like a central spine. 
With the ringing of the telegraph bell, the water boiled under Debut's stern, bringing her up short. The anchor splashed down into the cobalt depths a hundred and 160 feet below, the chain following in a cloud of rust. The ship eased astern clear of the bay and let go a stern anchor in 210 feet, then shortened up on the bow anchor until she was once more under shelter. When her machinery was shut down an eerie silence descended upon the bay. 
I scanned the shore through my binoculars and watched the frenzied activities of the islanders. They were launching their dug-out canoes through the surf to come out to my ship. I studied the small black dots as they gunned their outboard motors and sped towards me.
I walked beside the khaki-claw gendarme, stepping over the black volcanic boulders on the beach as big and round as football. The swell made a strange hollow sound as it knocked them together, like hundreds of woods on a bowling green. Jutting straight up into the air from the green valley floor, fingers of rock reached towards the sky, covered in mosses and hanging with creepers. Groups of women and young girls worked waist deep in a nearby stream, washing and beating out their laundry.
The dense tropical rain forest enclosed us, and the heat and humidity became unbearable. Compared to being at sea, it was like walking into a steam-bathe. There was brown mud all about us, and small children scampered around us in it to get a better look at the strangers from the ship. We were glad of the efforts of the islanders in making a narrow path of crushed coral and volcanic cinder to walk on.
The elderly gendarme led us to his house and bid us to be seated. He'd been the first person to come on board the ship, and brought baskets of local fruits and vegetables from his garden to welcome us to his island. He was hoping, in a similar exchange of gifts from the ship, to receive enough electrical wiring and fittings to electrify an extension to his house for his recently married daughter and her husband.
Everywhere about the village, small plantations of banana and taro flourished, and orange trees sprouted blossom and clusters of fruit. Dogs yapped and chased about between the excited children, and wild pigs rooted in the forest and stream-beds.
After Debut had been at the island a week, a small dingy from one of the yachts anchored there rowed out to the ship. Many of their owners had approached me for spare parts to keep their small floating homes going, and for the engineers to make repairs to get them as far as Tahiti.
Jacque was a middle-aged hippy, who had set sail on a voyage around the world with his wife from France. They had sold their small house in Brittany to build and fit out their 50 foot ferro-cement yacht, Trans Nuit. He was a retired professor from the Sorbonne in Paris, and his wife Marie held a doctorate in psychology.
One of the other yachties had told him of a collection of anchors that I kept in my hold for re-sale. As his own anchoring gear was of a dubious nature, he decided to come on board Debut to work out a deal. He didn't have any money, but brought his best piece of handicraft along to trade.
I offered Jacque a drink, and instructed my steward Siggy to fetch a 35 pound CQR anchor up on deck. Jacque explained to me his financial difficulties, and I was happy to accept a piece of hand-crafted jewellery for the anchor. After a few more drinks, I towed Jacque's small dingy back to his yacht, carrying the anchor in my launch.
His wife came shyly forward and greeted me, then invited me to come below for some coffee. She looked at the small pottery doll on the torque around my neck that I'd traded for the anchor, and asked if she could hold it one more time. Jacque explained that it was an Inca voodoo death doll, around 1,000 years old. He said it could be worth a lot of money, or nothing. The small female doll had been made by a witch-doctor, to put a curse on the victim for the purchaser. It was his best piece, and was all he had to offer. Marie clipped it back around my neck and made some coffee. 
That night, a fearful storm came from the east. There was blackness all around, and not a light shone from any of the yachts, or from the shore. In the morning, all the yachts were still there... all except Trans Nuit. She had broken adrift from her anchors and had been blown out to sea by the storm. They'd kept their position off the island by the riding-light of Debut, the only light to be seen.
A few hours later, Trans Nuit sailed back to the anchorage, and dropped the only anchor she had left... the one Jacque had bartered with me for the death doll. He locked himself in the forward lazerette, and wouldn't speak or come out for any one. She kept him alive by passing him scraps of food and bottles of drinking water after unscrewing a small ventilator on deck.
Four months later, while Debut was anchored in Cooks Bay in Moreau, the sister island of Tahiti, I learned what had happened to Jacque. I met up with Jane, a young American girl who'd just arrived on Trans Nuit from Nuka Hiva. She said that after Jacque refused to come out of the lazerette for three weeks, Marie had asked her to help sail their yacht to Nuka Hiva. After the gendarmes had forced the door on the lazarette, she flew with Jacque to Tahiti, and from there to Paris, where he was committed to a mental asylum. Marie intended living on her yacht in Papeete Harbour, and getting a job at the local hospital as a doctor. I never heard from her again. Get in touch, Marie, so we can catch up and talk over old times. All the best, Cpt Dick Brooks.


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