Corrigan's Run

by Colin Falconer

  Manning's office was now Colonel Nakamura's headquarters. Nakamura was the commander of the Japanese garrison, a career soldier with combat experience in Manchuria. Father Goode had had the misfortunae to meet him only once; a bull of a man with black eyes, a bristling moustache and the gait of a wrestler.

  Two barbed wire fences, spaced at fifty yards apart, had been strung around the perimeter. The path leading up from the village passed between these two fences, and there was a sentry posted at each entrance.

  Father Goode rode up that morning on an old and rusted black bicycle. He cycled slowly and imperiously, as he had done on so many previous occasions to collar Manning, to demand action or legislation from the District Officer over some matter concerning the spiritual welfare of the islanders - real or imagined.

  This morning his bearing and demeanour were exactly the same.

  The first sentry, a young boy barely eighteen years old, was too astonished to challenge him. He was also intimidated by the manner in which the priest rode past him without glancing even once in his direction.

  He had only two choices; he could either let him go or shoot him in the back.

  The young man hesitated, his hand on the stock of his rifle. And in that position he stayed, unable to decide what to do.

  Father Goode cycled resolutely towards the second sentry, secure in his faith that God was with him.‘The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want ...’

  The second soldier watched his progress, first with bemusement, then panic. His partner had let him through without even challenging him. Why?

  He raised his rifle, and pointed it at the priest.

  ‘Yeah, though I walk in the shadow of the Valley of Death ...’

  Father Goode did not even look up. His mind and heart were full of apostolic vengeance. He was filled with righteous anger, as Jesus had been when he entered the temple to throw out the moneychangers.

  The Lord was moving in him. Nothing could stop him.

  The second sentry, however, was unaware that he faced an unfathomable foe. He stared in confusion at the strange apparition headed towards him, dressed all in black even in the heat of the day, with a monstrous straw hat pulled down over his sickly pale face. He was just a country boy, and he still believed in demons.

  He decided something was very wrong. Unwilling to risk the wrath of Lieutenant Tashiro, he stepped forward, rifle ready at his hip.

  He ordered the priest to stop.

  Father Goode, unfamiliar with the Japanese language, kept going; even an exact knowledge of Oriental tongues would have made no difference.

  ‘For Thou art with me. Thy rod and staff they comfort me . . .’

  With a deft touch to the handlebars he steered around the sentry and kept going. In his mind he was already composing the speech he would make to Colonel Nakamura: ‘As the spiritual leader of the people I demand that you take immediate steps to ensure that …’

  The sentry’s confusion turned quickly turned to panic. He raised his rifle and aimed.

  ‘Stop! Do not go any further or I will shoot!’

  ‘... and furthermore, Colonel Nakamura, may I remind you that you are bound not only by common decency, but by the laws of the Geneva Convention ...’

  Father Goode heard a loud crack and the ground surged towards him, quite unexpectedly. Someone had pushed him off his bicycle so hard his face had hit the ground before he could throw up his hands to protect himself. There was a pain in his nose and mouth and someone had set fire to his left leg.

  He tried to move but his whole body felt like lead. There was something warm and wet seeping through the cassock.

  He groaned aloud and then everything went black.

  Chapter 19

  The sound of the rifle shot brought Nakamura and Tashiro running out of the office. They found Father Goode lying face down on the lawn, his bicycle sprawled behind him, one wheel still spinning.

  One of the sentries ran towards them.

  ‘What happened?’ Nakamura barked.

  ‘He wouldn't stop, Nakamura-san,’ the soldier said. ‘I warned him twice. He just kept going.’

  Tashiro strode over to the priest and turned him over with the toe of his boot.

  ‘Is he dead?’ Nakamura asked him.

  Tashiro shook his head. ‘Leg wound.’

  ‘What was he doing here? Is he armed?’

  Tashiro frisked him quickly. ‘He’s unarmed. What do you want me to do with him, Nakamura-san?’

  Nakamura shrugged. ‘Throw him in the prison house. We will interrogate him later.’ He went back inside.

  *****

  Patrick Corrigan surveyed the ruins of his life through the wrong end of a bottle of clear spirit, and toasted an uncertain future.

  He silently catalogued the litany of disasters that life had wreaked on him, stumbling through the house shouting curses at the Fates that had trapped him on a God-forsaken island with no way to make a living and now no way to escape. He had become a prisoner of a war that he wanted no part of.

  It seemed that no matter how fast or how far he ran, trouble always caught up with Patrick Corrigan.

  Sanei was his only solace. He would jeer insults at her as he struggled in the grip of another drunken rage, chase her from the house, an empty bottle splintering at her feet as she ran. But the next morning she would always return, bringing him coffee and rice and another bottle of square-face, as if nothing had happened. She brought him out of the dark places, until finally his spirits lifted and a new notion was born.

  Although the Japanese had requisitioned the Shamrock, they had so far made no moves to appropriate Heydrich's schooner, the Deutschland. Perhaps it was because he was Austrian, and therefore the national of a close ally. More probably it was because Heydrich kept it out of sight in a neatly camouflaged boat shed on his plantation.

  Heydrich's plantation was ten miles to the north. Reaching it by land meant a two-day hike through harsh mangrove swamp and jungle. But it was worth it, if it meant getting out of here.

  The Deutschland would not be guarded. Once he reached Marakon it would be a simple matter to slip the boat free of its moorings under cover of darkness and head for the open sea. He would cling close to the shore and then plot a course to the west, for the Trobriand Islands, and then down to Townsville in Australia.

  If he was stopped by a Japanese patrol boat, he could always produce the Irish passport and claim neutrality. The biggest risk was getting caught on the open sea by Japanese aircraft and strafed. But anything was better than sitting on Santa Maria, just rotting away.

  Corrigan was running short of vital supplies but he had located a bottle of Gilbey’s, just a quarter full, somehow overlooked during the binge of the previous weeks. He raised it to his lips, as a toast to the success of his venture, as if it were French champagne.

  It was then he saw a familiar silhouette on his veranda and he groaned aloud.

  ‘What's that bloody woman want now?’

  He heard her tapping on the door. He took a long swig from the bottle and slid further down into the chair. ‘It's open.’

  Rachel Goode looked around, sniffed, then walked around the room opening all the windows.

  ‘It smells in here,’ she said.

  Whatever else you said about her, the girl certainly had a lot of nerve. He watched her, fascinated. She was wearing a long white calico dress and a broad-brimmed hat, tied underneath her chin with a bow. She untied it and took it off, holding it in front of her, agitated fingers working their way along the brim. Her eyes were puffed and swollen; she had been crying.

  Corrigan grimaced. ‘If you want me to take you for another jaunt up the island you're wasting your time. The Shamrock's the flagship of the Imperial Japanese Navy these days.’

  ‘That's not why I have come.’

  Corrigan shifted uncomfortably in his chair. ‘If it's my body you're lusting after, I'm already spoken for.’

  Rachel blushed bright crimson and Corrigan chuckled.
r />   ‘It's about my uncle. He ... he has been shot and thrown into prison by the Japanese.’

  ‘I heard.’

  ‘Is that all you can say?’

  ‘Well, you know, we've all got our problems.’

  Rachel drew herself up to her full height. ‘I do not know what to do ... or where to go. I . . . I hoped you might help me.’

  Corrigan stared at her open-mouthed. ‘Me?’

  ‘You are a man of some resource. Why not?’

  Look at her standing there, he thought, looking at me like that down her haughty nose. Who does she think she is?

  He got up from the chair and took two steps towards her. He was a head taller and twice as broad. She stood her ground and returned his cool stare. ‘What do I care if they tie the miserable old bastard up by his thumbs?’

  To Corrigan's amazement a tear squeezed its way out of the corner of her eye and began a slow journey down her cheek. It hung there for a long moment; and the dull glow of the lamp reflected in it, before it finally splashed onto the collar of her dress.

  ‘I don't suppose you do care. I'm asking you to do it as a personal favour to me.’

  ‘You're out of your mind.’

  ‘I can pay you.’

  ‘How much?’

  Rachel fumbled in her purse and threw a tiny bundle of notes on the table. ‘Ten pounds. It's everything we have left.’

  ‘That money's no good to me here. Besides I'm not getting myself shot for ten pounds.’

  ‘There are other methods of payment if you prefer.’

  Corrigan eyed her coolly. He had no doubt what she meant and he was shocked, genuinely shocked, for the first time in many years. ‘The answer's still the same,’ he said huskily.

  He reached for the bottle of gin and unscrewed the cap. Rachel watched him. She had barely moved since she had entered the room.

  ‘What are you looking at?’

  ‘I'll not go till you agree to help me, Mister Corrigan.’

  Corrigan sighed. All he wanted was to be left in his own sort of peace. He knew he should tell this damned girl to get out of his house right now.

  ‘What the hell do you expect me to do?’

  ‘I have no doubt that a man of your considerable resource and courage will think of something.’

  He screwed the cap back on the gin bottle and put it on the table. ‘Damn you, woman,’ he said.

  *****

  Patrick Corrigan had lived on Santa Maria for almost five years and had nothing to show for it. He packed his passport, the little money he had saved, some clothes and some food into an old canvas haversack and threw it across his shoulder. As an afterthought he went back for the gin.

  ‘Medicinal purposes,’ he winked at Rachel.

  Rachel said her uncle had a leg wound. We'll have to carry the old bastard then, Corrigan thought sourly. ‘Wait there,’ he said to Rachel. He dropped the haversack and vanished into the jungle. When he came back he had two lengths of bamboo, each as tall as a man. He took some lengths of coir rope and some flour sacks from the store and roughly fashioned a light, makeshift stretcher.

  Half an hour later he was ready.

  Sanei sat on the front steps, staring at Rachel with hooded eyes. When Corrigan came out of the bungalow he patted her head tenderly, as if she was a favourite dog.

  He turned to Rachel. ‘She hates your guts,’ he said cheerfully and headed off into the night.

  *****

  It was a warm night, and a gentle breeze drifted across the bay, carrying with it the smell of the sea. Cicadas kept up a deafening, throbbing symphony in the surrounding jungle. The moon rose slowly over the bay, the waves on the lagoon shimmering in its track like a gigantic staircase leading up to the heavens.

  Rachel ran to catch up with Corrigan, now loping five paces ahead of her, the stretcher under his right arm.

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘To get your sainted uncle out of the blockhouse, like you asked me to.’

  ‘But you haven't told me how you intend to do that.’

  Corrigan grinned in the darkness. ‘Unlock the door I suppose.’

  ‘Unlock the door?’

  ‘I've got a key.’

  ‘A key? ‘But how?’

  Corrigan didn't answer her. Wary of Japanese patrols he skirted the village. The full moon made it easy for them to pick their way up the hillside. Lamplight shone between the trees from the village below them, and the air was scented with the heady aromas of frangipani and kerosene. The lights of the Japanese sampans flickered at their moorings at the end of the jetty.

  After a quarter of an hour the path got steeper as it wound its way up the headland around the old government buildings and up towards the old prison building.

  The gaol had been built on the promontory. The jungle had been cleared to make way for it, so that they had to halt at the tree line still some hundred yards away. The prison house loomed ahead of them, its limestone walls shining like old bones in the moonlight.

  Corrigan crept forward on his elbows and his knees, and signaled for Rachel and Sanei to do the same. There was just one sentry on watch outside, lounging under a hurricane lamp.

  The Japs were hardly expecting trouble.

  ‘What are you going to do?’ Rachel whispered.

  ‘We have a plan,’ Corrigan said.

  He tapped Sanei on the shoulder. She nodded, got to her feet, and began to unbutton her blouse. Then, dressed only in a blue-dyed lava-lava, she walked across the clearing towards the sentry.

  He looked bored and unhappy. His was only a token presence, and he faced a long and uneventful watch and anyway, the disgrace of being a prison guard was second only to being a prisoner oneself.

  He had leaned his rifle against the wall, and now lounged on his haunches, smoking a cigarette. Occasionally the glow of the cigarette illuminated his face and Rachel could see that he was very, very young.

  When he heard Sanei’s footfall he crushed out his cigarette and leaped to his feet. He scrambled for his rifle, training it on the darkened jungle. He wasn’t worried about the enemy; but he was terrified about getting a snap inspection from First Lieutenant Tashiro.

  The soldier barked out a command in Japanese. Sanei kept walking.

  She walked slowly, with an exaggerated swing of her hips. She appeared out of the shadows, into the arc of yellow light created by the hurricane lamp. The sentry relaxed when he saw it was only a woman, and grinned when he realized she was half naked.

  He laughed and lowered his rifle. ‘He thinks his luck’s changed,’ Corrigan whispered to Rachel.

  He had no doubt heard that the women in this part of the world were free with their sexual favors. ‘A hard on will always get the better of common sense,’ Corrigan added, and Rachel felt her cheeks flush hot in the darkness. She could not believe he would say such a thing to a respectable woman.

  The sentry laughed, excited, when he saw this sleek-skinned girl step towards him in the moonlight. Sanei put her arms around the young soldier's neck and her hips squirmed against him. The gun clattered noisily against the wall and onto the ground. Already he was trying to unhitch his trousers.

  Rachel looked away. She expected to find Corrigan grinning at her but he had other things on his mind. He already had his boots off and a knife in his hand. He set off on his hands and knees towards the prison block.

  Rachel watched, hardly daring to breathe.

  The soldier had dragged Sanei to a small patch of grass and rolled her on her back. Corrigan had better be quick, Rachel thought. I don’t think this is going to last very long. Corrigan was crouched, perhaps thirty paces away, just out of the lamp light. Suddenly he was on his feet and running.

  Rachel held her breath. The soldier had only to look up and he would see him. The rifle lay just a few feet away from him. But his mind was on other things; he had his khaki pants round his ankles, and he was on top of his new girlfriend already.

  Sanei cried out in pain. But when she saw Co
rrigan, she took the sentry’s face in her hands in a display of mock passion, effectively blinkering him. It was only at the very last moment that he saw Corrigan's shadow. He cried out in panic, and tried to scramble for his rifle, but Sanei caught his wrist. It stalled him just long enough. By the time he fought free it was too late.

  Corrigan sprang forward with surprising agility and brought the knife’s heavy ivory handle down on the back of the soldier’s head. He pitched sideways onto the ground and lay still.

  Naked, Sanei jumped to her feet and kicked the unconscious man in the chest. ‘Pig!’

  Corrigan caught her by the wrist. ‘That's no way to behave on your first date,’ he said. He picked up her sarong and threw it at her. ‘Get dressed. There's a man of the cloth in there, you know.’

  ‘I not make pus-pus with Japoni man again. Not even for you, Corrigan.’

  ‘You'll get a terrible reputation if you kiss and tell like this,’ Corrigan said. He turned towards the shadows where Rachel was still hiding. ‘What's the matter with you, girl? Bring the stuff and get over here!’

  Rachel picked up the haversack and Sanei's blouse and ran across the clearing.

  She looked down at the soldier’s body. ‘You killed him?’

  ‘I hit him with the blunt end. When he wakes up he'll think it was just a wet dream.’

  ‘But as soon as he comes round he'll alert the whole Japanese garrison.’

  ‘Not if we truss him up and gag him he won't. We'll throw him in one of the cells. It will give him some time between now and morning to contemplate the terrible wickedness of women.’

  He fumbled inside the canvas bag and pulled out two large keys on a ring chain. He went to the door, put one of the keys in the lock and kicked it open. The hurricane lamp hung on a nail hammered into the wall. He took it down, and led the way inside.

  The prison building had been constructed almost fifty years before, with hard-nosed British pragmatism. The original designers did not have the comfort and well-being of future inmates uppermost in their mind. There were few windows and the sanitary arrangements were spartan. From the cells came a dense aroma formed by years of mould and accumulated human waste. Rachel gagged.