Free The Devil's Eye by Ian Townsend

longed to explore the shining silver village of corrugated huts and strange smells, but he’d hardly stepped ashore when he found himself back on the water, in a lugger. He didn’t return until paying-off time.
    He’d signed for a year, but had ended the year in debt to the slop chest. The temptations of gin and tobacco, sweets and tinned meat were too much for any Tanna boy to resist.
    He spent the next year paying it off, and the next paying for the pleasures of the previous year, and so on. He had a reputation for working hard and was never seen rolling drunk.
    One lay-up, when he had hardly enough money to buy a drink and had to hang around the wharves for work, Mr James Clark himself gave him some white leghorns to take up to the Residence. It was Hope Douglas who had asked him to build the chicken coop, and then found odd jobs in the garden for which he was given a meal outside the kitchen.
    The next pearling season he was taught to dive, and when the Zoe ’s diver was pulled dead from the Darnley Deeps, he was made skipper.
    Willie was not a greedy man. If he had an ambition it was to continue diving, and one day, perhaps, to own his own lugger so that no one could tell him what to do.
    The devil in his ear, though, was Sam Motlop.
    Willie bent down on one knee, scooping up a dull flat oyster shell the size of a dinner plate and putting it into his bag. Perhaps it contained Sam’s pearl.
    He had ten shells, a poor haul. Willie could feel Sam’s chiding through the lifeline, as now. ‘Come up.’
    Willie signalled, ‘Wait.’
    ‘Squall.’
    Willie looked up, alarmed. The dull bottom of the lugger hardly moved. The light was bright and played across the sea’s surface, pierced here and there by the sun in bright columns of motes. All seemed peaceful.
    Willie sent the signal back, ‘Squall?’
    There was a long pause.
    Again the signal was ‘Come up,’ and before Willie could adjust the valve, he was jerked from the seabed, his boots trailing two streams of mud.
    He was rising too fast and signalled ‘Stop.’ After a couple of jerks he did stop.
    He hung there between the lugger and the sea floor, spinning slowly and breathing hard.
    Then he saw it. The crocodile’s tail propelled it forward with lazy sweeps. Willie had never before seen a crocodile from below. It had tucked its small legs into its body and it swam towards the Zoe.
    Willie tried to keep his eyes on it, but he was spinning. It appeared to be as long as the boat. Had a crocodile ever eaten a diver? He was sure Sam must have mentioned it.
    It came closer. Willie spun, a baited hook.
    He couldn’t believe the crocodile would attack the boat. Perhaps it was blind. Even if it did see the lugger, it might not see his lifeline and the air hose. Willie’s heart beat faster as he imagined a tangle.
    He reached around for the outlet valve. The crocodile was now fifty feet away and he could see its rough hide.
    Willie depressed the valve and a stream of bubbles burst from the helmet.
    With one sweep of its immense tail, the crocodile changed course to inspect the sudden movement.
    Willie, in a panic, tugged at the lifeline and to his horror was pulled into the crocodile’s path.
    It considered him with cold, hooded eyes and a casual display of teeth.
    In that intimate moment, Willie saw himself as a foolish, grey jellyfish. The crocodile now appeared to be simply bored and with a turn of the head, it dived. Willie watched it descend into the gloom and felt shamed. The crocodile had dignity. He, a warrior from Tanna Island, was dragged backwards, out of the water onto the deck.
    Sam’s head appeared at the face plate and he was speaking before he unscrewed it. ‘…I told you.’
    Willie blinked.
    ‘Didn’t you see it?’ asked Sam.
    ‘The squall?’
    ‘I signalled crocodile. Remember? Two pulls and two shakes.’
    Willie was shivering. His leg cramped, and he thumped it with a fist.
    ‘It was right in front of you,’ said Sam.
    ‘You pulled