~~~~~
Harta was fed up and bored, thinking that as usual his brothers had made him lookout. Today, he had been reminded that he needed to look out for Bandri’s return by boat, since he was to come back with one or two passengers, maybe at mid-day. All he had to relieve the boredom was to listen out for the whistle from the village. The men had decided that, occasionally one of them would blow a single whistle note, and the lookout needed to respond with a whistle, or with a flash of sunlight reflected off a polished bronze knife blade.
He looked down with pride at the knife he had been entrusted with, turning it over in his hand, forgetting his duty for a while. He needed to move between a few places so that he could see down the most likely land approaches, and also out to sea. If the lookout needed to alert the village then there were several agreed whistle signals. He wished he could whistle as loud and clearly as Praba, who didn’t even need to put his fingers in his mouth.
Finally he looked up, and saw the two boats in the middle distance. He couldn’t make out who was in the boats. All four people wore fisherman’s hats and they were all paddling hard.
He trembled. He must make the whistle signal – one long whistle and four short whistles. He put his fingers in his lips but his mouth had gone dry. Licking his lips, he tried again - some sound came out, but just not loud enough.
The boats were drawing closer, rapidly. It looked like there were four men in the boats; two of them were dressed in loose-fitting fishermen’s garb. He didn’t know who these men were – they could be attacking the village! Harta gave up on the whistling, and ran at top speed down the hill, waded as quickly as he could across the river at the shallow fording point, and alerted the village.
As the boats drew nearer to the beach Praba and the others could see it was Bandri and Agung plus two others – Lyana and Lela. When they hit the beach Bandri called out:
“Quick get them into a house – and Agung into a house!”
“Why – what’s wrong?”
“Three men from Bitung are coming here soon – we need to be ready.”
Breathing hard after the paddling, Bandri got out of the boat, briefly telling Harta and the other men what had happened at Pantai. The brothers wanted to see if Rukma could identify the tall bearded man as the same one he and their father had met in the boats last dry season.
If the men were heading to Bahoi the main path would take them past Likupang – unless they deliberately chose to avoid the village. Carrying bows and quivers of arrows, Bandri and Rukma selected positions to hide and wait. Rukma positioned himself behind the wide trunk of the old acacia, while Bandri scaled the grand old tree using the toeholds in its hard bark that he had carved out years ago. From his position, Bandri could see further along the paths; he could also he could see any signal from Harta, and also Praba in the village.
They didn’t have long to wait.
Bandri spied three men in the distance on the sandy coastal path. The three stopped someway short of their village, talked for a while, and then took an alternative smaller path that could take them around the village. Bandri and Rukma jogged back to Praba to inform him that they were going to try and get closer to the three men on the other path, by working their way into the forest nearby, which they knew well.
The three tribesmen walked quietly and quickly along the forest path. Hidden from view, Bandri and Rukma studied them as they passed close by their position in the undergrowth. The three continued in the direction of Bahoi.
The Tropical Sun - Belief, Love and Hate Page 24
