Nation

the beach every night, often with the Unknown Woman nearby, but now at least she trusted people enough to leave her little boy with them. And that was just as well, because she had taken a sudden interest in papervine, cutting the longest leaves of it from all over the island and then endlessly plaiting them into string after green string. So now, because it’s how people’s minds work, the Unknown Woman was known as the Papervine Woman.
    Once she solemnly handed her baby to Daphne, and Cahle made a remark that Daphne didn’t quite catch but which made all the women laugh, so it was almost certainly something like, “It’s about time you made one!”
    People relaxed.
    And the Raiders came, just at dawn.
    They came with drums and torchlight.
    Mau ran up the beach to the huts, shouting, “The Raiders are coming! The Raiders are coming!”
    People woke up and ran, mostly into one another, while outside the clanging and drumming went on. The dogs barked and got under people’s feet. In ones and twos men hurried up to the cannons on the hill, but by then it was too late.
    “You’re all dead,” said Mau.
    Out on the lagoon the mists faded. Milo and Pilu stopped their drumming and banging and paddled their canoe back to the beach. People looked around feeling stupid and annoyed. Nevertheless, up on the hill a man shouted “Bang!” at the top of his voice and looked very pleased with himself.
    Later, though, Mau asked Daphne what the casualties were.
    “Well, one man dropped his spear on his own foot,” she said. “A woman sprained her ankle because she tripped over her dog, and the man up on the cannon got his hand stuck up in the barrel.”
    “How can you possibly get your hand stuck up the barrel of a cannon?” said Mau.
    “Apparently he was pushing the ball in and it rolled back onto his fingers,” said Daphne. “Perhaps you should write a letter to the cannibals, telling them not to come. I know you don’t know how to write, but they probably don’t know how to read.”
    “I must organize people better,” said Mau, sighing.
    “No!” said Daphne. “Tell them to organize themselves ! There should be lookouts. There should always be a man up on the guns. Tell the women to make sure they know where to go. Oh, and tell them that the fastest gun crew will get extra beer. Make them think . Tell them what’s got to be done, and let them work out how. And now, thank you, I’ve got some beer half made!”
    Back in her hut, with the reassuringly homely smells of the cauldron, the beer, and Mrs. Gurgle, she wondered about Cookie: whether he had survived the wave, because if anyone should have done so, it was Cookie.
    Daphne had spent a lot of time in the Sweet Judy ’s galley, because it was only another type of kitchen, and she was at home in kitchens. It was also a safe place. Even at the height of the mutiny, everyone was friends with Cookie, and he had no enemies. Every seaman, even a madman like Cox, knew that there was no point in upsetting the cook, who had all kinds of little opportunities to get his own back, as you might find out one night when it was you hanging over the rail, trying to throw up your own stomach.
    And on top of this Cookie was good company and seemed to have sailed to everywhere on just about any kind of ship, and he was constantly rebuilding his own coffin, which he’d brought aboard. It was now part of the furniture of the galley, and most of the time the saucepans were piled up on top of it. He seemed surprised that Daphne thought all this was a touch on the odd side.
    Perhaps this was because the most important thing about this coffin was that Cookie did not intend to die in it. He intended to live in it instead, because he had designed it to float. He had even built a keel on it. He took great pleasure in showing her how well appointed it was inside. There was a shroud, in case he actually did die, but which could easily be used as a sail until that unlucky day; there was a small folding mast for this very purpose. Inside the coffin, which was padded, there were rows of pockets that held ship’s biscuits, dried fruit, fishhooks (and fishing line), a compass, charts, and a wonderful device for distilling drinking water from the sea. It was a tiny floating world.
    “I got the idea off a harpooner I met when I was working on the whalers,” he told her one day as he was adding yet another pocket to the insides of the coffin. “He was a rum ’un and no mistake. Had