‘That was very neat.’
‘What are you waiting for?’ Stewart growled. ‘That little parlour trick won’t fool a proper tracker for long.’
‘Tracker?’ Jamie frowned, but the Australian was already forging downstream out of sight of the ford. Here the banks closed in and Stewart grunted approval as he saw what he was looking for. The roots of a pandanus palm had given up the struggle with the thin soil and the eighteen-inch trunk had fallen to hang precariously at head height over the flow. As they reached the tree, Stewart handed Jamie the SLR and with surprising athleticism pulled himself up to balance on the trunk. He reached down to take the rifle and carried it to the sloping bank before returning to haul Jamie up beside him.
When they reached the bank Stewart studied the fallen tree, grimacing at the wet marks their feet had left on the bark.
‘Can’t be helped,’ he whispered. ‘Follow me and for Christ’s sake don’t make a noise.’ Picking up the rifle, the Australian ghosted his way through the vegetation without seeming to leave a mark of his passing. Jamie followed, trying, with limited success, to emulate him. As they reached the top of the bank Stewart forced him unforgivingly down among the fronds of a dense fern. They lay side by side, Jamie trying to still the arrhythmic, adrenalin-fuelled hammering of his heart and the breath that forced its way from his lungs in sobs. A minute passed, then another. Was the security man jumping at shadows? Stewart met the question in his eyes with an almost imperceptible shake of the head. Wait.
When they came they were like shadows, ethereal and almost invisible as they hugged the bank of the stream, their feet barely disturbing the surge of the water as they advanced. Jamie froze at the sight of the two black men in ragged T-shirts and worn combat trousers, automatic rifles held at the ready across their chests. Another ten paces and they would reach the tree. Jamie tensed, but Stewart laid a hand on his arm. Don’t move. Relax. Through a gap in the ferns he saw the enemy – whoever they were, their alertness and certainty of purpose definitely made them his enemy – halt. The closest, tall and athletic, with narrow-set killer’s eyes and pockmarked skin, cast a final glance over the surroundings and made a twirling motion with his finger. His companion nodded and together they turned to disappear upstream as silently as they’d come.
Jamie turned to his companion, but Stewart put a finger to his lips and squirmed silently backwards, downhill and away from the stream. Only when they’d covered fifty paces away and buried themselves in the bush did he rise. Jamie hurried to catch up with him, a dozen questions on his lips.
‘They were PNG,’ Doug Stewart whispered, forestalling the first of them. ‘Those illegal gold miners from the Jaba River I told you about. Redskins, and they must be desperate to be running around with fucking M16s in BRA country.’
‘What do you think they want?’
The Australian let out a soft snort of laughter. ‘Us, idiot. That monstrosity you have in your rucksack. Anything that Devlin has and they haven’t.’ He saw Jamie’s look of bemusement. ‘Intelligence,’ he tried to explain. ‘Just because they’re black fellas doesn’t mean they don’t have it, and you’d better start using yours if you don’t want to wind up dead. Look, Keith thinks he’s got Canberra wrapped around his little finger, but there are people in Canberra who don’t like Keith Devlin and would like nothing better than to see him fail. Maybe they’re sympathetic with the blokes running Port Moresby, maybe not, but they won’t miss a chance to do Devlin down. So the PNG government knows there’s dirty work afoot and they have spies on the island because they have everything to lose. The Solomons has spies on the island because they have an interest in what happens to Bougainville. The Chinks have spies on the island because they have spies everywhere in the Pacific. And the Aussies have spies here because they need to know if the mine is going to reopen and Bougainville is going to blow up in their faces again.’ He pushed his way through a stand of tall grass and Jamie struggled to follow. ‘All of those people have been watching us, some of them would be happy to see us dead and most of them want to see us fail. We’re on our own out here, son. Nobody’s gonna help us, but us. Just like the old days, but without the fucking Jolly Green Giant to take you back to the world. Now for half a dollar I’d bugger off and leave you on your own, but that would also leave me a long way from home and without a pot to piss in. So I’ll stay, for the moment, and help you get that thing back home. But you stay close and you cover my back.’
The barrage of bad news made Jamie wonder more than ever about Keith Devlin’s motive in sending them out into the bush without a proper escort. He wished to Christ he’d never come anywhere near this godforsaken island and that he’d never set eyes on the Bougainville head. But most of all he wished he had a gun; a big, shiny black gun like the one Doug Stewart carried.
‘We’re going in the wrong direction,’ he pointed out.
The ground fell away sharply to their right and Stewart tested a length of liana that would help him down the bank before he answered.
‘If we try to get back to the track the chances are we’ll meet them head on and they’ll either ask politely for what’s in your rucksack or shoot us and take it anyway. On the other hand, they might just carry on for a bit after they lose our tracks and set up an ambush.’
‘That seems to presuppose they know exactly where we’re going.’
Stewart grinned savagely. ‘A gold watch for the clever bugger with all the answers.’
‘Which means they could be waiting for us when we get there?’
‘It’s a possibility,’ Stewart conceded. ‘But Kristian Anugu’s clan owns a lot of the land where we’re going and they don’t take to strangers much, especially Redskins. I’m gambling our “gold miners” know that and won’t want to chance getting involved in a gun battle. I plan to cut down the western side of the hills until we reach the Pagana Valley, then follow it until we hit the plain. It won’t be much fun and it’ll take us longer, but at least nobody will be shooting at us.’
He grunted as he began to descend the crumbling earth slope, the liana in his left hand and the SLR in his right. Jamie picked another vine and followed. Within a few metres he felt something give and before he knew what was happening he was tumbling down the hill past the startled face of the other man. The trunk of a tree flashed by and it occurred to him he might break his neck and probably deserved to for not testing the vine properly. A millisecond later he landed flat on his face with an almighty, bone-shaking crunch that knocked every ounce of breath from his body. He lay with his eyes closed and experienced a mix of emotions. Relief that he was still alive and – he tested one limb at a time – more or less in one piece. Embarrassment that he had looked like a fool in front of a man like Doug Stewart. And concern that the bloody Bougainville head hadn’t suffered the kind of damage that would make it even uglier than it already was. But when he opened his eyes the only thing he felt was a paralysing surge of sheer terror that made him release an involuntary cry.
It wasn’t what you’d call a big snake, but when it was coiled two feet from your nose with its head held back ready to strike and its jaws gaping to show the awful fangs inside, it was more than big enough. The dull brown had slightly darker bands at intervals along the body and the serpent was a sinuous three feet long. Jamie noticed it had tiny overlapping scales that glittered with moisture from the earlier rain. He thought of moving back, but the pitiless black eyes mesmerized him and he knew the slightest movement would provoke the strike. Christ, what would it be like? His nightmares had always entailed being bitten in the leg or the arse; the face seemed that bit more awful. He’d feel the hit, and then the sting and then … He’d never understood the term gibber, but he was gibbering inside. Gradually he became aware of Doug Stewart’s boots moving into vision just beyond the angry reptile and a thrill of hope surged through him. The machete, that’s it, chop the ugly little monster into pieces. Pleeeeaaaase.
The Australian bent down and picked up the snake by the tail,
holding it away from his body so the head couldn’t reach him. It hissed and wriggled, attempting to get into position to strike, but Stewart didn’t even flinch. Eventually, Jamie raised himself on shaking legs and brushed himself down, keeping a safe distance between him and the twisting brown body.
‘Thanks.’ He swallowed. ‘That was a damned close thing, as the Old Duke would say.’
‘It sure was.’ Doug Stewart shook his head in mock sorrow. ‘You might have landed on the poor little bugger. It was the same in the ’Nam. FNGs never knew a bloody thing.’
‘FNGs?’
‘The Fucking New Guys. If you’d done even a little bit of research about this here island, Mr Jamie Saintclair, you’d have learned that the only good thing about Bougainville is that there are no poisonous snakes. Off you go, little fella.’ He threw the snake a few feet into the bushes and it slithered away into the undergrowth. ‘Now stop pissing about and let’s get going or Kristian Anugu will have died of old age before we get there.’
Jamie ignored him and opened the rucksack flap that held the Bougainville head. His fingers prickled with distaste as he picked it up by the curly hair and studied the ugly little face: it didn’t appear any more battered than usual.
‘This is the first time I’ve seen it close up,’ Doug Stewart said. ‘We’re risking our necks for a fucking gonk?’ He turned away and set off through the jungle, shaking his head in disgust. Jamie replaced the head and followed.
XLII
‘Now this is what you call jungle.’ Doug Stewart sounded as if he was enjoying himself. ‘Put your back into it. You’re not cutting cake.’
Jamie launched another attack on the thick stems of head-high elephant grass that blocked the way, chopping until his arm ached, but the big machete seemed to bounce off the springy green vegetation. Eventually, Stewart cursed and pushed him out of the way.
‘Not like that. Like this.’ He sliced the machete down at an angle in short, efficient strokes, cutting the stalks about thirty inches above the roots, allowing them to advance a few feet at a time. It had taken an hour to reach the Pagana River valley on the western slopes of the Crown Prince range. Since then progress had been slow as they worked their way upstream, halted at intervals by the thick clumps of impenetrable grass.
‘All right,’ Stewart gasped eventually, ‘your turn.’
Jamie winced as his blistered hand closed over the machete and braced himself for another ten minutes of hell.
At one point they came across the tail section of a large plane, which Stewart identified as a B-24 Liberator. It seemed bizarre to find evidence of advanced human engineering lying in the middle of nowhere like so much discarded rubbish. ‘Dozens of American and Jap planes came down in the jungle, and a lot were never found,’ the Australian explained. ‘The rest of this one will be spread all over the hillside. There’s a Jap bomber in the jungle down by Buin that they reckon was the plane Yamamoto was in when he died.’
Jamie studied the twisted metal for any signs of a serial number. ‘Would the crew have got out?’
‘What do you think?’ Stewart turned away and Jamie hurried to catch up with him.
The valley rose steadily upwards, snaking its way through the jungle, and Jamie lost track of time as they followed the winding contours, sometimes forced into the shallows where the jungle became too thick to penetrate, even with the machetes. Eventually, Stewart found what seemed to be an overgrown track and the going became slightly easier.
They’d gone about a mile when the Australian suddenly froze, mid-step, and dropped to one knee, gesturing for Jamie to do the same.
‘Do you see it?’ Jamie frantically scanned the jungle ahead for signs of life, but all he could see was trees, bushes and ferns. Stewart slowly rose to his feet and brought the rifle to his shoulder. The rising terrain had forced a bend in the trail and he walked slowly forwards and stopped a foot from the green wall. He used the rifle barrel to push aside a twisted vine and reveal a dark void beyond. ‘Jap bunker,’ he said.
Jamie moved to join him, astonished that even though he knew the bunker was there, his eyes still didn’t believe it. It would have been well camouflaged originally, but after five decades the jungle had made the concrete structure its own.
‘Perfect place for an ambush,’ the Australian said admiringly. ‘When the Allies landed at Torokina the blokes in the 26th Battalion would have had to come this way to cover their flank when they marched south. We can’t be far east of Slater’s Knoll, where they broke the back of the Jap resistance in March ’forty-five.’ He laid down the rifle and unsheathed his machete, chopping at the vegetation until he revealed the angle of the bunker’s side, then cut a route to the rear, where he found the entrance. Jamie followed. ‘Let’s take a look.’
Stewart produced a torch from his rucksack and ducked into the concrete passage. Vines had blocked the machine-gun slits and fought their way in to take over most of the interior, the roots clawing their way into the flaking concrete. The floor was thick with leaf mulch and the whole interior smelled of decay and damp. As the torch beam passed over the base of one wall, Jamie noticed what looked like a bundle of old rags.
‘What’s that?’
Stewart flicked back to the spot and crouched beside it. The cloth disintegrated at his touch, but not before he’d identified it. ‘Jap uniform,’ he said. ‘Looks like the owner was still in it, but the pigs have been at him.’ He dug in the leaf litter and pulled out what appeared to be part of a human jaw, plus a few bone fragments.
Jamie waited for him to throw the remains aside, but the Australian cradled them in his hand as he ducked back into the passage and out into the daylight. Without a word, he laid the bones in the grass and used his machete to dig a small hole to the right of the bunker entrance, where he placed the bones and replaced the earth. When he was done he sliced a piece of wood from a nearby branch and shaped it into an oblong three inches wide and eighteen high. ‘Do you have a pen?’
Jamie searched into his pockets until he found what he was looking for and watched as Doug Stewart wrote ‘Unknown Japanese Soldier’ into the raw wood.
Stewart caught his look and shrugged. ‘He was a Jap, but he was a soldier, and believe me, son, every soldier wants to know that when he’s dead someone will send him home. I’ll mark this place on the map and hopefully someone will come and check the place for more remains. At least what’s left of him will get a decent burial.’
With a final glance at the last resting place of Lieutenant Tomoyuki Hamasuna they set off for the Pagana Plain and the longhouse of Kristian Anugu.
Jamie’s energy-sapped mind barely registered the first burst of fire from their right front, but Doug Stewart reacted instantly, bundling the Englishman to the ground and firing single, aimed rounds from the SLR over his body. ‘Find some cover,’ the Australian snarled. ‘That was just a warning.’
‘Where?’ Jamie looked around in desperation, but with his nose in the damp earth all he could see was grass. ‘They’re probably all around us and if you shoot back at them the next bullets will be up our backside.’
‘Nope,’ Doug Stewart said calmly. ‘I reckon there’s only three or four of them. The main party haven’t had time to get ahead of us.’
‘How do you work that out?’
‘Because if there’s more than that we’re well and truly fucked.’ They ducked as bursts from two or three weapons ruffled the top of the grass. ‘You go left,’ the Australian ordered. ‘I’ll work my way right and try to flank them. Soon as you hear the SLR, get off your arse and get yourself as far into the jungle as you can.’
‘For Christ’s sake,’ Jamie cried, ‘why don’t we just give them the bloody head if they’re that desperate for it? It’s not worth fucking dying for!’
But Doug Stewart was already gone.
Reluctantly, Jamie squirmed back through the grass towards the thick jungle. When he reached it, he turned and began to crawl deeper into the foliage, moving fast up the slope, but
staying low. There’d been no firing for almost a minute, but suddenly the distinctive whip-crack of the SLR broke the silence. ‘You bloody madman,’ he groaned. But he did as he’d been instructed. He leaped to his feet and sprinted uphill as the rattle of two or three automatic weapons combined. A hidden dip opened up in front of him and he dived into it, rolling over and over until he came to rest at the foot of the hollow.
The sound of gunfire faded and he found himself staring at a pair of dark feet in open-toed sandals, the nails and the flesh beneath them a pale contrast to the rest. He decided distractedly that it was an odd thing to notice at a time like this, probably the mind delaying the moment of awful truth. With a feeling of terrible inevitability he craned his neck and looked up into the bearded face and flaring nostrils of a black man wearing a Jimi Hendrix T-shirt and sports pants. The face, with its betel-stained teeth, would have been fearsome enough even without the rifle – the twin of the one Doug Stewart had carried – that was aimed directly at Jamie Saintclair’s right eye.
‘Bugger.’ He allowed his head to drop; he wasn’t especially keen to see the bullet that killed him. All that effort wasted, the Bougainville head would never reach its destination and he’d never find out what was so important about all this. His final bleak thought was that the ever-so-clever Doug Stewart had been wrong and he’d been right. They’d been surrounded. He had walked straight into the people he’d been trying to run away from, which was very silly when you thought about it. But a little niggle in his brain told him there was something not quite right. Something …
The Samurai Inheritance Page 31
