by Peter Watt
‘I believe you have a son,’ Jack said, by way of changing the subject.
‘Yes,’ Karin replied with a wan smile. ‘Karl is currently attending school in Townsville. Her smile darkened. ‘The other children are cruel to him. They call him a dirty Hun.’
‘Kids are like that,’ Jack attempted to console her when he noticed tears welling in her eyes. She looked away. ‘But given time kids also have a way of sorting out differences,’ he hastily added.
‘I pray that you are right, Mr Kelly,’ she replied as she wiped at her eyes with the back of her flour covered hand. Instinctively Jack reached across the table to take hold of her hand. It was a gesture prompted by the depth of her hurt and one that surprised him. Normal feelings for such perceived trivial problems had been long blasted out of him on the battlefields of France – or so he thought.
‘Things will work out,’ he said as he held Karin’s hand gently in his.
She gazed at him with an expression of gratitude and allowed the ghost of a smile. ‘I think you are right,’ she replied. ‘Oh, I miss Paul. I pray that we will all be together soon. I am afraid I have not been as good a wife to my husband in the past as I should have been.’
Jack withdrew his hand. ‘I doubt that. From what I have seen in even this short space of time I think Paul has to be the luckiest man alive to have a wife as good as you.’
Karin unconsciously brushed at a strand of loose hair hanging across her face and sniffed. ‘I thank you for your kind words. Paul is lucky to have you as a friend. But tell me, Mr Kelly, what brings you to Townsville?’
Jack was taken aback by her bluntly delivered question. How could he tell her that he had only stopped over so that he could meet the woman of his dreams? That delivering the letter was merely an excuse to do so?
‘Just on my way to Sydney and I thought I might drop in to tell you that Paul is doing well,’ he answered as convincingly as he could. ‘I will be leaving tomorrow on the train south to Brisbane and then on to Sydney from there. I received a telegram when I landed yesterday that my sister has died. My son was staying with her.’
‘Oh, I am sorry. But you are married?’ Karin said with a note of surprise. ‘And you have a son?’
‘Was married,’ Jack replied. ‘But my wife died in the flu epidemic a couple of years ago. I am afraid I hardly know my son. He was born while I was serving overseas. His name is Lukas and he is around five now. They say he looks like me.’
‘Paul is almost a stranger to our son too,’ Karin said. ‘The war took more from us than we know. Our son is only a year older than yours.’
‘Think I know what you mean. Lukas is like a stranger to me and I feel bad that I am not a better father. I just dumped him on my sister so that I could go gold prospecting back in Papua and New Guinea.’ Jack fell silent and stared across his coffee at an almost translucent gecko perched high up on the wall in a dark corner of the kitchen. ‘I don’t know what I am going to do.’
‘I am sorry for your loss,’ Karin repeated gently. ‘Death still comes to us.’
Jack nodded and his sadness was thick in the room. ‘My last correspondence on her health was that she was not expected to live long. She got some kind of infection when she cut herself pruning flowers or something. Doctors said that they could not stop it eating her up.’
‘What will you do about your son?’ Karin asked. As if to answer her own question she added, ‘I could look after him if you wish.’
Startled by the simplicity of the suggestion, Jack stared at her. ‘You would do that?’
She smiled with a warmth that Jack could not remember in a long time. It reminded him of his sister’s wonderful smile. ‘I may require just a little money to pay for his expenses but I have room in my life for one more boy. It is a simple way of repaying your kindness towards my husband.’
A massive weight seemed to lift from Jack’s shoulders. If he was to return to Papua, he knew that his brother-in-law was not really capable of rearing Lukas on his own. The boy needed the attention of a woman at such an early stage in his life. Now Karin was offering to give his son a home where the wonderful and earthy aromas of baking bread and brewed coffee might give stability to a little boy’s life. Sometimes fate had a strange way of repaying acts of compassion.
‘If that is not a trouble to you, Mrs Mann, I would gladly pay for his board and keep. I know he would be looked after under your roof.’
‘Please call me Karin,’ she said. ‘And may I call you Jack?’
‘Meant to say that before,’ Jack said with a feeling of euphoria for the sudden answer to the problem of his son’s welfare. ‘I guess we are kind of family now,’ he added with a short laugh which made Karin smile.
‘He will be treated as if he were my own son – and Karl’s younger brother.’
‘I cannot thank you enough for your offer. I hope that the young fellow does not cause any trouble.’
‘Oh, I am sure if the son is like the father he will prove to be a boy any woman would be proud to have under her roof.’
Jack sensed the honesty of her statement and in it a gentleness that he had not known for a long time. He felt a lump in his throat and decided it was time to leave. He did not finish his coffee but said his farewells to Karin at the door, arranging to bring Lukas with him on his way back to Papua.
Karin watched him walk away, waving when he was at the head of the track that led back to Townsville. When the big gum trees swallowed him in the distance she turned back to the kitchen to finish making the dumplings for the stew.
Although Jack was disappointed that he did not get the opportunity to bid Erika a farewell, he walked back to town feeling that something good had come to his life. Karin was just the right sort of woman to care for Lukas. He was not aware however that Erika had also watched him depart, as she stood beside the water tank pondering. She would ask Karin questions about this strange Australian who had a German mother and who had met her brother in the trenches of the Western Front the day her beloved Wolfgang had been killed. She too watched him walk away until he was hidden by the dignified old trees that lined the track. But somehow she knew that he was not gone from her life. Fortune had brought Jack Kelly to their front door as the answer to her aspirations to find a way out of this godforsaken country of heat, dust and dangerous snakes.
FOURTEEN
The eerie glow of phosphorus laced fungi and the darting flickers of fireflies brought back vivid memories of the battlefield. Paul lay in the sago swamp of primeval plants and swigged at the phial of laudanum. The expedition deep into the Fly River delta was not going well. Paul knew the symptoms of malaria and the dreaded disease was racking his body.
Dademo had quarrelled with the three native carriers who were insisting on returning home to Moresby. The white mister was dying and there was no sense in staying. But Dademo used bluff and threats to make them remain.
Paul eased himself into a sitting position with his back against a huge tree. The jungle was like a brick wall – unrelenting and impenetrable. All around them frogs croaked incessantly whilst night birds shrieked with almost human-like cries. It was unnerving and flashes of the battlefield came to the very ill German.
‘They are going to stay,’ Dademo said as he knelt over Paul and offered him a pannikin of mushy sago paste. ‘I told them that if they didn’t stay I had your permission to shoot them.’
Paul tried to grin at the former houseboy’s determination and loyalty. ‘You have my permission to shoot them if they try to leave,’ he sighed, and sank back as another wave of the fever hit him. How many weeks had he been in the delta since Sen had commissioned him to go in search of Iris in the far flung province of Papua? Three, four? It was all a blur now.
And Dademo had begged for permission to be head boy in the expedition. Paul had opposed his inclusion in the recruiting party; he was a houseboy and not used to the gruelling hardships that went with such forays into the jungles. But Dademo had his reasons which he confided to Master S
en, who was at first angry but then agreed the houseboy should go. Dademo had confessed that the day Miss Iris went missing he had failed to tell the master where she was going. He felt responsible for her loss and needed to do something to make up for his negligence.
Thus the party of Paul, Dademo and three porters recruited from a village near Moresby had loaded their provisions aboard the Japanese captain’s little coastal boat and chugged west towards the gaping mouth of the Fly River. They were heading into a region barely touched by Europeans, unknown territory inhabited by unknown tribesmen. But Sen ascertained it was the last known destination of O’Leary and his recruiting party.
‘The governor does not know of your destination,’ Sen had cautioned Paul before leaving. ‘But I am sure you have the experience to be successful in determining whether my sister-in-law is alive, and perhaps also opening up new areas for recruiting labourers.’
Sen had upheld his nagging suspicion that local natives had not ambushed and killed Iris. His wife would wake at night and cry out to her half sister in the dark corners of the room. ‘She is calling to me,’ she would utter in a wide-eyed sweat, and when Sen looked into her dark eyes he could see the conviction she held that Iris was somewhere out in the jungle alive. When Jack had confronted him with his evidence it confirmed to Sen that for his own peace of mind he must attempt to search for Iris. She had always been a strange woman but one he liked very much. Her parentage was still a mystery but My Lee had shared the rumour with Sen that she was the product of an illicit affair between a Chinese woman and a European missionary, that in fact she was not his wife’s half sister but had been adopted by his wife’s mother to cover the indiscretion.
Sen had briefed Paul on his covert mission. He was to say that he was recruiting native labour, should he ever be questioned by the Australian authorities. When he had employed the German Sen sensed in the man a strong character prepared to take on the risks of this mission. When the briefing had concluded Paul had turned to walk away with his newly acquired .303 rifle on his shoulder. ‘If you find O’Leary,’ Sen added, ‘be prepared to kill him. If you do not, he will kill you.’ With that warning echoing in his ears Paul set off on a journey that took him far from all that Europeans called civilisation.
The boat voyage had not given Dademo a real opportunity to exercise his authority over the three porters, but he did have a Lee Enfield single shot rifle and the authority of the white man to enforce the law. Now that they were ashore Paul was glad that Sen had overruled him on the choice of Dademo as his head boy. The young man had proved to be as brave as any soldier Paul had known. He had a cheerful determination to win against all odds and a keen sense of humour.
‘Any sign of natives today?’ Paul sighed as the malarial attack abated a little.
‘Some footprints down near the river,’ Dademo answered. He was reluctant to sleep just in case the three men, all from a village not far from his own home near Moresby, attempted to slip away under cover of darkness. And he had kept their stores close by and guarded. ‘I heard drums when we were cutting a track to the river.’
‘Got to come across a village sooner or later,’ Paul muttered as he closed his eyes against the flashes that reminded him of the battlefront. ‘When we do we get as many of the boys to come with us as we can and head back out of here.’
When Paul woke a few hours later he noticed that the cloying mists had wrapped themselves around the sleeping figures in the very small clearing. He counted heads and was satisfied that Dademo had done his job. Then the morning came and so did a change of luck.
It was a large man-made clearing. Felled trees indicated that it had been recently used to make canoes, and fresh wood chips beside a partially hollowed out log gave a strong indication that the canoe maker would be back.
‘We hide here and wait until someone comes,’ Paul said quietly. Dademo issued the orders and the men concealed themselves in the surrounding jungle. They did not have to wait long before a native sauntered from the forest with a stone axe. Dademo stepped into the clearing and the canoe builder gave immediate fright. He cried out in his fear and attempted to flee but the native porters tackled him to the ground. Greater was the man’s terror when Paul loomed over him.
‘Do you understand what he is saying?’ Paul asked and Dademo frowned.
‘No savvy this man,’ he replied.
Paul smiled and held out his hand to the fear stricken native. ‘I will give you a gift that will help you build your canoe,’ he said, although he knew the man did not understand him. He took one of the trade axes from their supplies and walked over to the canoe.
The native pinned on the ground realised the futility of struggling against his captors and turned his head to observe the strange white man suddenly start hacking at his canoe. Wood chips flew as the man sweated.
Paul stopped and motioned to the porters to bring the man over so he could observe what he was doing. They held the terrified canoe builder between them as Paul continued to hollow out the log. The captive native watched in awe as the shiny hard stone carved away the wood with an ease he had not seen before.
‘Let him go,’ Paul ordered as he proffered the trade axe to the canoe builder. The man stood for just a moment before suddenly turning on his heel and fleeing for the safety of the forest. Paul cautioned his men to let the man escape but Dademo had an expression of concern across his face.
‘Maybe the bugger will get a war party together to come back and kill us,’ he grumbled.
But Paul ignored his natural fears. He placed enough credence in the fact that they had not harmed the man and allowed him to flee without hindering his escape. The man would return to his village and discuss what had occurred in the clearing. That they had not harmed him. It was just a matter of waiting.
And wait they did.
Paul insisted that they set up camp in the clearing and go about their routine without any sign of fear or animosity. If he were right about the man returning to his village he had no doubt that even now men were returning to spy on the strange intruders into their territory.
Just before sunset they came – a party of around twenty men armed with the long bows and arrows of the warrior.
‘They are here,’ Dademo hissed as he fingered the trigger guard of his rifle nervously.
‘I can see them,’ Paul said calmly as he applied a burning twig to his pipe and puffed at it. ‘Just ignore them and see what happens.’
‘They will kill us,’ Dademo muttered as his eyes took in the scene.
The warriors were standing at the edge of the clearing. But they had not strung their bows and Dademo recognised the man they had captured earlier that day standing at the front gesturing in their direction.
Paul eventually rose from a log where he had been sitting with his pipe and scooped up a half dozen small trade hatchets. As he slowly walked towards the gathered party he was thoughtful of the Webley & Scott revolver slung at his hip. He could see that the men were all in their prime and truly warriors. They wore grass skirts, cassowary bones through their noses and little else. All were heavily armed with bows and stone axes. They watched him from a distance with curious and brooding expressions. He could see fear but also sensed a dangerous tension and knew he should go no further. He placed his offerings on the ground, and walked casually back to Dademo and the porters standing by the fallen tree and partially built canoe.
The man they had captured moved forward to pick up an axe. He held it above his head and Paul could hear him deliver an oratory to his kinsmen who listened without making any move. Then an older man in the group moved forward to pick up one of the axes. Paul could see that the metal puzzled him as he turned it over in his hands. These were truly a primitive people. Their technology ran to wood and stone alone, he thought.
The canoe builder continued to deliver his oratory in a high voice to his kinsmen but this time he was slowly approaching Paul as he spoke. Paul casually rested his hand on the butt of his revolver but sensed that t
he man meant him no real harm. When he came up to Paul he continued his dialogue in his high warbling voice. Then he stopped and fearlessly reached out to touch Paul’s shirt. He said something and the German guessed that he was being examined.
‘I don’t think that the man is a demon,’ the canoe builder was saying to his comrades, who had watched with some trepidation as the canoe builder dared go towards the strange creature with the pale skin. ‘I think that he might be an ancestor spirit who has come with this strange stone so that we may better build canoes. He has brought us more of the axes made like the clear waters but harder. I think he is the spirit of my dead brother Mekeore who was killed when I was young.’
Muttering and head nodding from the warriors confirmed the canoe builder’s observation. It was a strange thing that the ancestors should return in such garb. But if the canoe builder who was a respected member of the clan said the stranger was the long dead Mekeore, then it must be so.
Paul was startled when the native man much shorter than himself flung his arms around him in an obviously friendly embrace. Tears flowed down the man’s dark cheeks and he continued passionately with his monologue. Paul was being welcomed back into the land of the living. Seeing that he did not harm their kinsman, the other warriors approached cautiously and gazed with interest at the remaining trade goods piled at the centre of the clearing. Paul glanced at Dademo who appeared a little more relaxed as the tension subsided. ‘I think we can begin trading,’ he said as the canoe builder finally released him from the embrace and went to retrieve what goods might be of use to him. After all, they were a gift from his dead brother.
Soon more of the people from the nearby village streamed out to see the miraculous return of the canoe builder’s long dead brother for themselves. Paul found that he had trouble keeping his dwindling supply of trade goods together. One brazen warrior decided to take a mirror for himself. He had watched the ancestor spirit using it when he scraped away the stubble of his beard in the morning. Instead of offering pork meat or sago for it he snatched up the hand mirror when Paul placed it beside his tent in a pannikin of suds. However, Dademo saw the theft and called to the German.
