The natives did not believe Thompson’s words. They were more inclined to believe that the Japanese were their friends and were going to drive the Witman off the islands. However, no one dared to give voice to those thoughts at the moment.
Then he got to the sticky part. “Because we are at war with the Japanese, everyone will have to pay a tax of five Pounds a year.” No one understood what he meant.
“All men will work on the Plantation for six months every year. I will give you knives, hatchets, steel tools, tinkens, cotton cloth, and clothes. I will also give you Australian money; enough to pay the tax. I will give you five Pounds every six months.”
The islanders looked at each other to see if anyone understood what Thompson was telling them. No one did.
There was a general grumbling that went through the crowd that Thompson interpreted correctly. They had no intention of working on the coconut plantation. The assemblage began to break up. They had no intention of hearing any more of Big Man Tomsin’s nonsense, and drifted away.
His first reaction on seeing that he was losing his audience was almost automatic — he fired the double-barreled 12-gauge into the air. As always, it got their attention.
“I have not finished talking, yet!” he screamed. “I have been appointed Governor of this island. You are all British subjects, and will follow the regulations I set down.
“I have six Policeboys who will make sure you obey the laws.” He called them up to join him on the verandah. They were wearing their uniforms and were carrying their six-foot quarterstaves. But when he counted them, there were only five — he was one short. He saw that most of the tribesmen wore smiles. They knew something he did not, but it seemed best not to call attention to the missing Policeboy.
Thompson pointed to one of his copra drying buildings, and said, “That is the calaboose. Anyone who does not report to work on the plantation and collect coconuts or do what I tell him will be held inside that copra shed in the dark. He will stay there until he decides to cooperate.”
More islanders were beginning to go back to the jungle, and Yani decided that it was time for him to leave as well. Thompson picked three men to start work immediately. Again, waving his shotgun in the air, he said, “I will select the rest of the workmen as they are needed. We have to husk the coconuts already in the shed starting now.”
Everyone knew that it was a particularly arduous and difficult process. No one wanted to do it. To say that the mood of the men was ugly would be a gross understatement.
___
Yani found McDuff still asleep, and he dismissed the girl. Placing his hand on the minister’s head, he closed his eyes and whispered the word formula Ooma had taught him to undo fever spells. It is simka of Tomsin’s doing that gives him hot skin, Yani thought as he touched the sick man. The Witman’s pills are OK if Big Man Duff’s magic calls for them. But I think the old way is better in this case. The Witman doesn’t know anything about spells, and the work of bis. Tomsin is a strong bis, but I am stronger.
The young shaman kept his eyes closed, and visualized McDuff active and working in his usual manner. He held on to this thought until the patient awoke 15 minutes later.
___
Dr. McDuff lay on the palm leaves, his clothes soaked in perspiration; a piece of wet gingham cloth across his forehead. His eyes opened and he gazed up at the stained glass window. He recited a series of prayers focused on helping him recover his health. He asked to be shown the way he could fulfill his mission. As he prayed, the noise from the village began as a low murmur, but grew steadily in volume as more of the men picked up the chant. Yani had heard it from its beginning, and McDuff noticed that the Churchboy was acting strangely. He had placed a number of tinkens in a box, along with the Bible and “A Missionary in the New Hebrides”
“What are you doing, Yani?” the bleary-eyed American asked, pointing feebly with his shaking hand at the box. “Why are you putting my books in the box?”
The young man filled a large, hollow gourd from their rainwater cistern, and stuck a makeshift cork of palmwood into the neck. “You sleep. Yani tell you when time wake up,” he said in his best English. He did not want to risk being misunderstood. “I go now. Come back soon. You sleep.” And with that, he slipped into the jungle carrying the box and gourd.
“Come back!” McDuff called after him. “It’s time for my quinine pills. I can’t reach them myself...” But Yani was gone.
He slowly rolled over, and fell off the pile of palm leaves onto the floor, winding up on his stomach. From this position he was able to work his way into a kneeling position, and finally stood up shakily by holding on to the altar. He misjudged his sure-footedness, and his knees gave out from under him. He grabbed at the altar-cloth as he went down and caused the stained glass window to pitch forward. He sat down hard on the ground, and was quickly crowned by the falling window.
The broad surface of the window crashed down on the malaria-weakened man and shattered on impact, covering him with dozens of razor-sharp shards of colored glass. He was struck on top of his head by the heavy metal frame of the window, which rendered him unconscious almost at once. His head went through the leaded glass joints and he received numerous scalp wounds that bled profusely. He fell against the altar in a sitting position and the window frame hung around his shoulders like a huge necklace.
___
McDuff had not been unconscious for more than ten minutes when four of the tribal elders crept up on the church clearing, weapons in hand. They all wore oversized nambas or penis gourds. The men wondered at the silence in the little compound. The Witman was known to talk almost incessantly, and Yani was also unusually verbal for an islander. On a signal from the head man, they all sprang to their feet and ran into the back end of the church swinging their recently acquired machetes.
The churchfella, Big Man Duff, was not stretched out on the floor, sick and delirious as the woman had told them. Instead, he was sitting at the front of the church, facing them. His head and face were a bloody mess, protruding through the window, and was not moving.
The lead man raised his hand and signaled the others to stop where they were. He looked for a long moment, then shared his assessment of the situation. “Yani has already killed the Witman. But he had a strong spirit. If we go near him now, he can still make powerful simka against us. Leave the way we came in. Don’t touch him.” Slowly the four men backed out of the crude building and hastened back to the village.
Yani did not take the pathway back to the church. He moved carefully from tree to tree, not revealing himself in case anyone was watching. Suddenly, he saw the four elders returning from the direction of the church, and he feared he was too late. Once they were out of sight, he hurried through the bush.
He found McDuff just as the natives had, but ran right to him. Seeing that the missionary was still alive and breathing, he carefully lifted the splintered window off the injured minister and threw the frame to the side. The jewel-like shrapnel lay strewn around the foot of the altar, so Yani lifted McDuff up and out of the danger zone.
He laid him back on the palm leaf bed and poured water on the man’s head. The cool liquid revived him and he reached instinctively for his nose to keep the water from entering. He coughed and slowly opened his eyes. Fortunately, there was no glass around his eyes, but his face and scalp had numerous slits and cuts.
“Blackfella do this?” Yani asked him.
“Do what?” McDuff said, knowing that something had happened, but really having no idea what. He looked at the hand he had just touched his nose with. It was covered with blood. “What the...!
“What happened? How did I get this blood on my hand?” Then he became aware of the pain and discomfort on the top of his head and around his ears. When he reached up he gathered a new collection of blood on his fingers.”
“Blackfella do this?” Yani asked again. “I see them run through jungle. I think maybe they kill you. I find Jesus hit you on head.” He pointed to the ruine
d picture of the Ascension.
McDuff touched his hair and felt the tiny glass particles. It took a few minutes to compose himself. “I think I know what happened. I fell against the altar and the picture fell on top of me. What a shame it’s ruined. We’ll never be able to repair it,” he lamented.
He tried to sit up with little success. Yani helped him. “Night time come quick,” Yani said. “We hide in jungle now. We go down beach. No moon this night time.”
“What on earth are you talking about, Yani?” the pandanus leaf walls of the church seemed to swirl around him. “Why do we want to hide in the jungle?”
“Blackfella kill Witman. Kill Tomsin. Kill Big Man Duff. Wait for Japfella come. Japfella Blackfella friend. They bring tinken, guns for Blackfella. Kill Witmen,” Yani rattled off quickly. “Percy say so.”
“You say they’re going to kill Thompson? We’ve got to warn him. We’ve got to get down to the Big House.”
“Yani think you head-sick. Yani put tinken, water, books in Captain West boat. Night time we go boat. We go Yani’s island. See Ooma.”
Those were the last words Dr. Moses McDuff heard within the confines of the Church of God’s Triumph. He had passed out again. Yani draped him over his shoulders and carried him into the bush. He headed toward the strand, and hid his patient among the palm trees while he waited for the right time to race out onto the pier.
A bright light caught his eye at the other end of the lagoon. The Big House had just started to burn. It grew in intensity, and finally took on magnificent proportions when the drums of petrol for the generator blew. The natives were in a frenzy of joy at their liberation.
The island had again lived up to its reputation among white men as Christ’s Despair. Yani took advantage of the blazing distraction, and carried McDuff out on the pier. He safely placed him on the deck of the Salvation, untied the moorings, and quietly put to sea.
Chapter 17
As dawn broke, the mists surrounding Christ’s Despair began to dissipate. Wembly was on the Wombat’s deck early and saw that there was a pall of smoke hanging over the lagoon. As Gale joined him he said, “Uh, oh. I think Jeremy’s had some trouble.”
He reached into the wheelhouse and picked up his binoculars. Scanning the shoreline, he said, “Stop the engines!” He handed the glasses to Gale and said, “look two fingers right of the pier on the water line.”
Mr. Gale did as he was told. “Oh, my God,” he said, and lowered the binoculars. “I guess we better not go ashore.” Wembly focused the glasses again. He counted the heads of the six Policeboys, and that of Thompson. Five of the Policeboys’ heads were mounted atop their quarter-staves. The sixth seemed to be on one of the truncheons broken in half. Thompson’s head was at the end of a mangrove stick generally used for shucking coconuts.
They heard a muffled blast of a shotgun. On the pier stood one of the natives with Thompson’s 12-gauge. He fired the second barrel, but the Wombat was well out of range. It was followed by more shots from two of the plantation manager’s 30.06 hunting rifles. They were not out of range of those.
Wembly mounted the gun turret and turned it toward the pier. The chatter of the four .50 caliber machine guns was earsplitting, but the result was devastating. The shooters on the pier were virtually blown into the water by the wall of lead that engulfed them. After a couple minutes of raking the beach, Wembly stepped back down onto the deck.
“I had been waiting for an opportunity to try that thing out,” he said on an ironic note. “I don’t think we need to go any further than this into the lagoon.”
Hearing the noise, Percy came on deck to find out what was happening. He picked up the binoculars and surveyed the scene without revealing his distress.
“The Salvation is missing,” Gale said with a hopeful note in his voice. “Maybe Dr. McDuff got away.” He scanned the horizon. “The question is, which way did he go? He was pretty sick. He can’t do much by himself with a boat that size.”
“Well, we came from the west and we didn’t pass him to our knowledge,” Wembly suggested. “Although we might not have seen him in the dark.”
Percy pointed toward the sun rising in the east. “They go that way. Chase Island that way — Yani’s home.”
“He’s probably right,” Gale agreed. “Due east. He’ll sight on the sun. I think we better start looking for him.”
***
Dawn found the Salvation’s prow lined up with the sun. Yani had a kind of built-in dead reckoning that told him which way was north. The cloud cover had obscured the stars, so the Chase Islander just followed his instincts. If they had sailed five days toward the sunset to get to Christ’s Despair, then sailing five days toward the sunrise would seem to be the thing to do. His destination was home, and with him was a prize of sorts — Big Man Duff. He would make him comfortable on the island, and then persuade him to use his magic to have God deliver tinkens and tools. If he could do it on Christ’s Despair, there was no reason to think it would not be just as easy on Chase Island.
Ooma would be proud of him. He had not brought Kilibob back home, but he had done the next best thing. He would be bringing someone who “knew” how to get Kilibob’s gifts.
McDuff began to stir as the light of day became stronger. He opened his eyes and became quickly aware of where he was. The boat’s only remaining sail was billowing and the yawl was moving at a fair clip. His fever had abated somewhat and he lifted himself up on one elbow. “How did we get here?” he called to Yani who was holding the tiller on a straight course.
The young man smiled broadly and answered, “You much sick. Thompson make strong simka. Try kill you. Yani’s magic stronger. Pastor McDuff sleep ... I carry him on boat. Him sleep all night.”
“What happened to Thompson? Did he get away?”
A serious expression crossed Yani’s face. “Big House — big fire. I think Big Man Tomsin he cook.”
The minister chose not to pursue the matter further. His imagination was sufficient. He leaned back, and shielded his eyes from the sun. “Where are we going? Do you know where we are?”
“We go my island. Witman call Chase Island. We stay there. Yani tell Ooma you my Big Man churchfella. You friend Blackfella.”
Well, McDuff thought, it sounds more congenial than Christ’s Despair. Any change would have to be an improvement. If the people are all like Yani, my chances of success sound an awful lot better.
The gourd full of water was within reach, and he took a long swallow from it. He was weak as a kitten. He propped himself up against the gunnel and took a drink of a different kind. This time it was the beauty of the scintillating blue water. Deep down he felt a wish to be free of his missionary vows, and have nothing to do but enjoy the splendor God had created in this part of the world.
His eye caught something moving swiftly through the water from the direction of the sun. “What is that, Yani? A sailfish? A shark maybe?” he asked.
Yani strained his eyes. “Him no fish,” he said. He made a motion with his hands indicating that it was moving too fast.
To McDuff’s second look, it appeared to be a strangely shaped motorboat. It was heading straight in their direction, and closing fast. Thank God, we’re saved, he thought.
As the boat drew near, all too quickly the rest of the behemoth broke the surface 100 feet in front of them. It was like no fish Yani had ever seen. It had no scales, no fins, no eyes. It was metal. It was a Japanese submarine.
Yani’s eyes almost bulged out when he saw the top of the conning tower open and three men emerge. To him this was a huge fish that had swallowed men, and they were now escaping. However, he was too astonished to do anything but look. McDuff was terrified. He guessed quickly what the encounter meant ... It meant that they were not going to reach Chase Island, and would be lucky to live through it.
Two sailors clambered down the outside ladder and ran forward to the single gun that was mounted on the sub’s narrow deck. They removed the sea plug from the barrel, and loaded a
shell one was carrying into the breech. The Japanese officer gave them some brisk commands, and the weapon was pointed at the sailboat.
McDuff drew on all the strength he could muster and rose to his feet. He staggered forward to the mast and yelled, “Ahoy, on the submarine. We are Americans. We are Americans.”
The officer in the conning tower brought his right hand down sharply and shouted something unintelligible. Yani and McDuff heard an ear-shattering blast. The starboard bow of their boat disappeared in an eruption of wood and metal fragments, knocking both men to the deck.
The sailors, deck gun, and submarine were all new, making this the first time the gun had been fired at sea. The shell hit the boat, but not where it was supposed to. Water rushed in and the Salvation began to capsize. Before they had a chance to fully understand what was happening, the minister found himself and his Churchboy submersed in the exquisite aqua-colored water of the South Pacific he had been admiring only minutes before.
***
The Wombat was heading east at flank speed. At most, the Salvation had a five- or six-hour lead on them. Diesel engines would eat up the sail-powered time and distance pretty quickly if they were going in the right direction.
Percy was perched on the forward railing, scanning the horizon, which might be a little more than two miles viewed from sea level. Suddenly he heard a noise that came from a point out of sight, but definitely straight ahead. “Mr. Wembly,” he called, “You hear? Big noise.” He pointed eastward.
Wembly turned his binoculars toward the direction Percy was pointing. “I think I see something, but I can’t make it out.” The former yacht was going as fast as it could, and the distance to the apparent horizon was closing fast.
Wembly almost did a double take when the image took shape in his glasses. “I think it’s a submarine!” he called to Gale. “Most likely a Jap sub. H.Q. was right, they are operating in these waters, the bloody bastards. I think the Salvation has rolled over.”
When John Frum Came Page 15
