Page 9 of Dauntless

Eddie opened his eyes and blinked rapidly for a moment, and then caught my unhappy expression.“It’s not your fault.God, what a mess though.The diary’s okay, at least.”

“Henry Jessup’s diary,” I said evenly.I poured some hot cocoa into a mug and set it on the small kitchen table.“Here.”

Eddie groaned.“God.That diary is my whole thesis!I mean, myactualthesis is on the laptop, but everything should be backed up.It’s the diary that’s important.I promised Theresa, my advisor, that I’d look after it.She’d murder me if anything happened to the original.We have a digital copy, but you—you don’t want to hear about that.”He exhaled slowly.“It’s good.The diary’s okay.It’s good.”

I cleared my throat.“Henry Jessup the bosun on theDauntless?He died here, on the island.”

“No!That’s the thing.”Eddie’s eyes widened, his expression brightening.“He didn’t die on the island.He took a boat and made it all the way to Sumatra!That’swhere he died, and that’s where his diary turned up, in an estate sale a few years ago.Theresa bought it on eBay, can you believe that?”

“About as much as I can believe he made it all the way to Sumatra from here,” I said wryly.

“No, listen, this would make it one of the world’s most amazing feats of navigation,” Eddie said.“Right up there with Bligh, except Henry Jessup did italone.”

“He died on the island.”I sat opposite Eddie and curled my fingers around my mug of cocoa.“His name’s in the old church.”

“It’s a lie,” Eddie said.“He didn’t die here.Heescaped, because he wanted to alert the British and have the men here put on trial for their crimes.”

“Their crimes?”I asked.“The mutiny?”

“Not just that.The diary’s full of them.The murder of George Hawthorne and a bunch of the male passengers from theAntigone.The rape of the female passengers.There was one woman, Betsy Howard, who was already married, so they killed her husband so that John Dinsmore could marry her instead.”Eddie’s voice grew louder, his expression more animated.“It wasn’t a mutiny against George Hawthorne because he was a bastard.It was a mutiny because he was trying to stop his men from going full-onLord of the Flies.George Hawthorne wasn’t the bad guy.Josiah Nesmith was!”

“That’s not true.”The denial was instinctive, and it was out before I could even think of biting it back.It was in my blood,literally.I took in Eddie’s dismayed expression.“I mean, you’re saying that everything here is built on alie.”

“I guess,” Eddie said.He shrugged.“But so what?That’s how it works, you know?There are two sides to every story.More, in most cases.Sometimes what we’re all taught turns out to be, well, bullshit.That’s history for you.”

Except it wasn’t history, not really.It was here and it was now.We islanders weren’t divorced from our origins.We celebrated them.We lived them every day.Eddie was talking about history like it was some old, dusty pages, but this was our lives.It was impossible to explain to mainlanders.I’d tried, a few times, in Sydney, with my flatmates and my classmates.Tried to explain how things weren’t the same Dauntless Island, how the mutiny had taken a little branch of humanity and snapped it off.How it had been planted in different soil and something new had grown from it.How our origins and subsequent isolation had made us different.But I’d never been able to explain it well.It wasn’t something you could grasp unless you’d seen it.Eddie still wasn’t getting it.

He’d been down in the village earlier, a Hawthorne sitting on a bombshell, and it didn’t even occur to him how much damage it had done.How personally the islanders would have taken it.Not even when someone had attacked him tonight.

My first instinct was to take it personally too.Not to the lengths whoever had attacked Eddie had taken it, but I could see how they had.I couldunderstandit, and it sat heavily in my gut.Understanding felt too close to justification, and it left a sour taste in my mouth.I didn’t like what it said about Dauntless, or about me.

“I need to report I was assaulted,” Eddie said at last, his fingers wrapped around his mug.“I need to call the police.”

I grimaced.

“Oh.”Eddie’s face fell as the realisation hit him.“There’s no police officer on this island either, is there?”

“No.”

“So…how do I report a crime, exactly?”Eddie asked slowly.

I nodded toward the radio in the corner.“Anything urgent, they’ll send the water police, or the chopper.Otherwise, the copper from the mainland comes over once a fortnight as part of his beat.”

“They’re not going to send a chopper for a stolen laptop, are they?”

“No,” I said.“They’re not.”

Eddie’s brow wrinkled.“But you must have some sort of government agency on this island, right?”

“Not really.I mean, there are only two actual government employees on the island.Mavis, who runs the post office, and, well, me.And Short Clarry the mayor, but he’s elected, not hired.”

“Mmm.”Eddie set his mug down again.“Which government department do you work for?”

“Transport.”

“Ah.No offence, Joe, but none of those options are exactly filling me with confidence right now.”

I shrugged.“That’s fair.”