Chapter 1
Massacre on the Coconut Isles

In one thing, Mr. Povondra was mistaken: the shots exchanged at Kankesanturai were not the first conflict between people and newts. The first known skirmish had taken place some years before on the Coconut Isles in the golden age of pirate raids on the salamanders; but even that was not the oldest incident of this sort and in the ports of the Pacific Ocean there was much talk about certain regrettable cases when newts had offered any kind of resistance, sometimes even to the normal S-Trade; although petty incidents such as these are not written about in the history books.

On the Coconut Isles, or Keeling Isles, this is what happened: The Montrose, a raiding ship operated by Harriman’s Pacific Trade Company and under the captaincy of James Lindley, sailed in for one of its usual newt gathering expeditions of the sort known as a Macaroni Run. The Coconut Isles were well known for a bay with a large newt population settled there by Captain van Toch himself but which, because of its remoteness, was left, as they say, to its own devices. No-one could accuse Captain Lindley of any lack of care and attention, not even in that the men who went on shore were not armed. (At that time the trade in hunting newts had already taken on a standard form; it is true, of course, that the pirate ships had earlier used to equip themselves with machine guns and even light cannons, although they were not intended for use against the newts but against unfair competition from other pirates. One day however, off the island of Karakelong, one of Harrimans steamers came up against a Danish ship whose captain considered the hunting grounds of Karakelong as his territory; so the two sides settled some old accounts to do with their prestige and some trading disputes by leaving the newts alone and starting to fire at each other with their rifles and Hotchkiss guns; on land, victory went to the Danes after their successful knife attack but the Harriman ship then had its success by firing its cannons at the Danish ship and sinking it with all hands, including Captain Nielsen. This became known as the Karakelong Incident. So then governments and officials of the relevant countries had to become involved; pirate ships were from then on forbidden to use cannons, machine guns or hand grenades; the companies involved also allocated what they called the free hunting ground among themselves so that any one newt settlement would only ever be visited by a certain raiding ship; this gentleman’s agreement among the great pirates was adhered to and respected even by the smallest raiding businesses.) But to return to Captain Lindley, he conducted himself entirely in accordance with commercial and marine practices of the time when he sent his men out to gather newts armed only with sticks and oars, and the later official enquiry gave the dead captain full satisfaction in that respect.

The men who went down to the Coconut Isles that moonlit night were under the command of Lieutenant Eddie McCarth, who was already experienced in this sort of newt-gathering expedition. It is true that the herd of newts they found on the shore was exceptionally large, estimated at between six and seven hundred strong and fully grown males, whereas Lieutenant McCarth had only sixteen men at his command; but it cannot be said that he failed to do his duty, partly because the officers and ratings on the pirate ships were paid, it was said, according to how many newts they captured. In the ensuing enquiry by the marine authorities it was found that “although Lieutenant McCarth is responsible for this unhappy incident it is quite clear that no-one else would have acted differently under the circumstances”. The unfortunate young officer had, in fact, shown remarkable prudence in that instead of slowly surrounding the newts, which, given their numbers, could not have been fully achieved, he ordered a sudden attack with the intention of cutting the newts off from the sea, forcing them inland and stunning them one by one with a blow to the head with a club or an oar. Unfortunately, when the attack took place the sailors were separated from each other and nearly two hundred salamanders escaped into the water. While the attacking men were processing those newts which had been prevented from reaching the sea they began to hear shots behind themselves from shark guns; no-one had any idea that these wild and natural newts on the Keeling Isles were equipped with weapons against sharks and no-one ever found out who had given them to them.

One of the deck hands, Michael Kelly, who had survived the whole catastrophe, said: “When we heard the first shots we thought it must be some other ship that had come to hunt for newts like we had. Lieutenant McCarth turned round quick and shouted, ‘What are you doing, you fools, this is the crew of the Montrose here!’ Then he was hit in the side, but he still pulled out his revolver and started shooting. Then he got a second shot in the neck and he fell. Then we saw for the first time that it was the newts firing at us and trying to cut us off from the sea. Then Long Steve raised his oar and rushed out at the newts shouting Montrose! Montrose! so we all started shouting Montrose! and thumping at these horrors with oars or whatever we could. There was about five of us left lying there, but the rest of us fought our way down to the water. Long Steve jumped in and waded out to the boat; but when he got there some of the newts grabbed hold of him and pulled him down under the water. They drowned Charlie and all; he shouted to us Lads, Jesus Christ lads, don’t let them get me, but there was nothing we could do. Those vermin were shooting us in the back; Bodkin turned round and he got it in the belly, all he said was Oh no! and he fell. So we all tried to get back inland to the interior of the island; wed already broken all our oars and sticks on these monsters, so all we did was run like rabbits. By then, there was only the four of us left. We didn’t dare go any further away from the shore in case we couldn’t get back on board ship; we hid behind some stones and bushes and had to look on while the newts finished off our mates. Drowned them in the water like kittens, they did, and ............