Muruk took them along paths that were hidden by the jungle, the byways rather than the highways. The climb over the ridge was relatively easy with no need for ropes or pitons, but the altitude, well over three thousand metres, left them breathless. Standing on the top of the ridge, Sergeant Wilkes looked back towards the village. The view was spectacular, as if some titan had taken a giant bucket of greenery and splashed it into the valley, the foliage sluicing up the mountainsides towards them. Muruk’s village could be seen clearly, appearing like a sloppy crop circle cut into the vegetation by drunken aliens.
Muruk and Timbu chatted briefly in the village dialect.
‘Muruk apologises for the cold,’ said Timbu, ‘but says going this way will slice half a day from the trek.’
‘Hamas taim long go long?’ asked Beck, who was starting to pick up a few words of pidgin. How far to go?
‘Klostu liklik,’ said Muruk.
Beck nodded, but obviously with no idea of what the boy had said.
‘He said, literally translated, “fairly near”. But around here, normal concepts of distance don’t mean much. We might still be walking this time tomorrow and Muruk will still be saying, “klostu liklik”,’ said Timbu.
Littlemore swigged some water from a flask. Ellis pulled a fleece from his pack. Beck shrugged. ‘Well, tell Muruk we’re enjoying the walk anyway.’
‘Sweet,’ said Muruk, smiling broadly, again taking everyone completely by surprise.
‘He says he doesn’t understand English – picks up on the sentiment. But I think maybe he’s having us all on,’ Timbu said, patting the boy on the shoulder.
The wind was up on the high exposed ridge, adding a chill that made it uncomfortable to stand still, yet Muruk appeared unaffected by either the altitude or the cold. Wilkes wondered if the young man felt the elements the way he did, or whether the hard life in the bush had inured him against them.
The jungle on the far side of the ridge was no different to the bush around Muruk’s village, but the young man moved through it far more carefully. This was not his turf, so it paid to be cautious. It was late afternoon before Muruk called a halt to the march. They stood amongst a stand of trees and ferns and towering marijuana plants with heads as thick as a man’s wrist, covered in the characteristic red hairs of the local variety.
‘Wow,’ said Ellis, examining a plant. ‘There’s a shitload of short-term memory loss here.’
There was no order to the plantings that Wilkes could see. Handfuls of seeds had probably been thrown here but, other than that, the stuff was growing wild. And it was everywhere. Muruk spoke with Timbu, who then turned to Wilkes: ‘Muruk wants to find a place to bed down overnight. He doesn’t want to get too close to the village in the dark – we may be discovered. He says this is a good place to stay. The plants are not harvested at night.’
‘So we’re close?’ Wilkes asked.
Timbu nodded.
‘Em ples – em i longwe o nogat?’ Wilkes asked Muruk directly. The village – how far is it?
The boy held up a finger, indicating an hour.
‘I want to use the night for cover – see our gunrunning friends in action,’ said Wilkes.
‘Yes, but don’t you think…?’
Sergeant Wilkes pulled a pair of NVGs from his pack and handed the binocular device to Timbu. ‘I’m not suggesting we go there stumbling around blind,’ he said.
Timbu turned the unusual device over in his hands. ‘Hey, seen these in the movies,’ he said. ‘How do they work?’
Wilkes held out his hand and Timbu returned the NVGs. ‘There are different types. This is two in one. It can be used as a low-light accentuator that gathers the available light and strengthens it. Or, flick this switch,’ he said, depressing a heavily rubberised button, ‘and it will emit its own light, painting the area ahead. You only use this mode when you’re sure the bad guys aren’t wearing them too, because they’ll also be able to see this light source.’
Timbu put the NVGs on over his head and tried to focus them. The lenses glowed iridescent green. ‘Can’t see a thing,’ he said.
‘’Cause it’s still daylight – too much light.’
Timbu looked like some kind of bug-eyed alien with them on, his coils of thick black hair standing out between the head straps and falling around the intricate dual lenses. ‘Okay. I’ll try and explain these to Muruk. Can I borrow this set?’ he asked.
‘You hang on to that pair, I’ve got a spare. And Ellis has an extra set for Muruk.’
It was late afternoon and the night would come down fast. Sergeant Wilkes figured they’d get about thirty minutes of twilight before complete darkness settled in. ‘Okay,’ he said to Ellis, Beck and Littlemore. ‘Let’s have some scoff. We’ll get this show on the road in about…’ he checked his watch, ‘forty-five minutes. Cache the gear here. Don’t worry about burying it,just secure it. Take only what you need: weapons, water, NVGs.’
‘Roger that, boss,’ said Ellis, Littlemore and Beck nodding.
Wilkes marked their position on his hand-held GPS.
Half an hour later, fifteen minutes ahead of time, the troop was silently on the move. Muruk had adapted quickly to the NVGs, curiosity overcoming his initial fear, the technology totally beyond anything he’d ever experienced or imagined. They used the painting mode because there was barely enough light under the canopy to accentuate. Wilkes had been right. It was a black night. To be on the safe side, they would switch modes just before reaching the village.
After they’d walked for about forty minutes, Muruk pulled up and whispered to Timbu quietly.
‘The jungle ends ten paces that way,’ said Timbu, keeping his voice low and pointing off to his left. ‘Muruk says we should circle around the village and come at it downwind. He says these people are renowned hunters and he doesn’t want to give them the opportunity of picking up our scent.’
Wilkes nodded, appreciating the boy’s caution. ‘I want to get as close to the village centre as possible.’
Timbu spoke quietly to Muruk.
‘No problem. He says he knows this village well. He and a few of his brothers and cousins used to dare each other to come here – a test of bravery. Says he once walked right through it, from one end to the other; in broad daylight, no less.’
‘Ask the kid if he wants a job,’ said Wilkes. ‘Okay, the deal is this. I don’t want you or Muruk put at unnecessary risk. Stay back beyond the treeline. If you hear shouts and gunfire, you leave. No waiting around. Get back to the cached gear. If you need them, inside the front of my pack you’ll find two hand grenades. They’re no bigger than small Christmas decorations, but they’re not nearly as friendly. Hold the trigger, pull the pin, then throw. Trigger, pin, throw. You got that?’
Timbu nodded and took a few deep breaths, suddenly realising how serious things were.
‘Once you let the trigger go, you’ve got four seconds before the thing blows. Make sure it doesn’t hit a tree and bounce back at you. A hand grenade will stop a charging rhino and anyone following you will have second thoughts about the wisdom of staying on your tail.
‘And fuck-knuckles,’ he said, turning to his men, ‘remember we’re here to take nice, friendly pictures, not wage war. Keep your trigger fingers holstered unless things go to shit.’
The SAS men nodded. ‘Pictures, not war. And keep our fingers in Trigger’s shit. Right?’ said Littlemore.
Wilkes punched the trooper in the arm playfully. Doing stuff like this was an adrenalin rush, and Sergeant Wilkes’s men enjoyed the ride.
‘Okay, let’s turn these things off now and go with the available,’ Wilkes said. The soldiers turned their light sources off. Wilkes hit the switches on Timbu and Muruk’s devices. Wilkes glanced in the direction of the glow indicating the village’s presence through a wall of jungle. These things really were magical, he thought, wondering how fighting forces ever got by without them.
Muruk took the lead once more, silently picking his way around the edge o
f the treeline for ten minutes before sitting back behind a giant hardwood. He gestured towards the village. Wilkes followed the direction of the lad’s eyes. There, about eighty metres away between two structures, a green fire blazed. Wilkes adjusted the NVGs to compensate and people appeared in the glow. It was the village centre and some kind of gathering was taking place. The structures closest to him – grass huts, for the most part – appeared deserted.
Muruk caught Wilkes’s attention. He cleared the ground at his feet and sketched a quick map of the village. He drew a line from the edge of the village that threaded through several huts, then made the hand signal he’d seen Wilkes use to go forward. Wilkes nodded that he understood and spent a few seconds making sure of the track, glancing up at the route he’d be taking then down at the map. And then he was gone, Ellis following behind. Littlemore and Beck paired up to do the overwatch, their weapons off safety, covering their comrades from another angle.
The hut Muruk had directed the Australians to was the perfect observation point, just off the centre of the village. It was some kind of enclosure for seasoning timber and, because of that, was sturdier than most of the huts around it, constructed from hardwood rather than woven grasses. Wilkes remembered seeing one just like it in Muruk’s village, only this hut was not being used to dry timber. Instead, it was stuffed with cannabis plants hanging upside down. The place reeked of wet pot. Ellis playfully took one of the giant heads in his hand and shook it, introducing himself, and his hand came away coated in sticky cannabis oil.
The smell of the drying plants would have been unbearable but for the many air holes in the walls. Wilkes and Ellis lay on the dry, dusty earth floor, each finding a hole from which to look out, and took off their NVGs. There was plenty of light from the fire to see what was going on without the devices.
‘Bugger me,’ said Ellis in a whisper.
Sergeant Wilkes was no expert on the ethnic differences between the various peoples of South East Asia, especially at night from a distance of thirty metres, but the man demonstrating the use of a nine millimetre semiautomatic pistol to an enthralled crowd of near naked, befeathered men was certainly not Papuan.
Wilkes and Ellis watched as the man stripped down the weapon and then expertly reassembled it before inserting the clip in its stock. He pulled back the loading mechanism, which chambered a round. Aimed. BANG. And half a pig’s head on a post set up for the demonstration blew clean away, splattering several men sitting close by with brains. The tribesmen jumped at the noise of the explosion that filled the clearing. Then they all laughed heartily, obviously delighted with the new device soon to be placed in their own hands.
‘Jesus. Hand guns,’ said Ellis.
‘And mercury tips to go with them,’ said Wilkes. He pulled a credit-card-sized camera from his top pocket and began taking photos of the gathering. Ellis jabbed him lightly in the ribs with an elbow and pointed at two large crates. They contained enough hand guns to arm two platoons. Ellis also indicated that Wilkes should photograph the small mountain of bulging hessian bags he’d spotted stacked to one side of the clearing. New Guinea Gold, ready for transport.
‘How much do you reckon that would be worth on the streets?’ asked Littlemore. They were witnessing the exchange. An Asian man took a pipe from his pocket and dipped it in a bowl presented by one of the highlanders. He then sparked up a lighter and dipped the flame into the pipe’s cone. He exhaled a vast cloud of thick smoke and sat back. The gathering held its collective breath, waiting for some reaction from the man. After a long minute, the Asian said something Wilkes didn’t understand, but it was obviously positive. The villagers nodded and smiled, and then rushed the crates for their pistols. At least the traders had the good sense not to hand out any ammunition.
After the excitement faded, the bowl and pipe passed from man to man and soon nearly everyone in the gathering was stoned. Several natives rolled enormous cigars and filled their lungs with the pungent, mind-altering smoke. After an hour of cackling laughter the second phase of the drug kicked in and most of the users fell asleep.
‘Come on,’ said Wilkes. ‘Seen enough.’
They edged back from the air holes, refitted the NVGs, and silently crept out the door and into the path of two enormous painted men staggering back from the evening’s entertainment. The four men looked at each other for what seemed like an age. The natives were obviously frightened by the appearance of the startling bug-eyed strangers. For their part, Wilkes and Ellis were unsure what to do with the warriors they’d stumbled into. They didn’t want to kill these men, but at the same time they couldn’t afford discovery. Ellis went for his man first, attaching a sleeper hold that cut the blood supply to the brain by pinching off the carotid artery. Wilkes chose a quicker option. He launched himself, ramming his forehead into the man’s chin, instantly punching his lights out.
Ellis brought his opponent quietly to the ground, the black man’s feet twitching as he slipped from consciousness.
‘They won’t know what hit ’em,’ said Wilkes, relieved at least that the inert pair at their feet would live to see another day.
‘Love to hear how they describe what they saw,’ said Ellis, adjusting his NVGs and turning on the unit’s light source. ‘Honest, chief, we wuz attacked by men from Mars…Yeah, sure – you bin smokin’ that whacky tobacky again, ain’t choo?’
The two soldiers made their way quickly back to the treeline without further incident. Timbu and Muruk were waiting for them, as instructed.
‘That was lucky,’ said Timbu. ‘Thought the cat was out of the bag for sure, then. Get what you wanted?’
‘Yeah. Scary stuff, I’m afraid,’ Wilkes said.
‘I’d like to know how they get the drugs out of here. Maybe there’s an airfield nearby somewhere.’ Ellis propped the goggles back on top of his head and rubbed his eyes. The NVGs were hard work. They offered almost no peripheral vision, presenting the world as if through a narrow green tunnel. The things always gave him a crushing headache.
‘Yeah…’ Wilkes realised the job was only half done. They were going to have to tail the gunrunners and see where they ended up. ‘Damn,’ he said to himself. He was supposed to be back in Townsville the day after tomorrow. Annabelle would be pissed off. Again.
Sergeant Tom Wilkes rolled out of his hammock two hours before dawn. No one needed waking. Within moments, the men were all quietly repacking their gear. Muruk led the way back to the enemy village, the NVGs looking totally out of place on a young man wearing a penis gourd.
The soldiers knew things would be different as they approached the village this time. The two men they knocked on the head would have sounded the alarm and guards would undoubtedly be posted. Muruk kept them away from the trails, which made the going more difficult.
They arrived within twenty minutes of the village just as the sky in the east lightened to purple. The bush crawled with highlanders stalking soundlessly through it with AK-47s, and some with pistols. The advancing dawn eliminated the advantage of the NVGs. Muruk brought the party in a wide arc around the village, but they couldn’t get any closer. Wilkes wanted to get on the trail of the gun traders, or at least see in which direction they were headed.
‘Timbu, ask Muruk if there’s any higher ground around here that’ll give us a view of the village.’
The interpreter put it to Muruk, who gave Sergeant Wilkes a nod. Half an hour later the men climbed a volcanic outcrop with the jungle spread out below. The soldiers pulled out their binoculars. Wilkes could clearly see the traders, maybe a dozen men, leaving the village. Behind them snaked a trail of natives toting the sacks of marijuana slung between poles. The scene reminded Wilkes of old Tarzan movies. The party was departing to the north, on the opposite side of the village to their observation post. Wilkes and his men kept watching until the column disappeared from view, in case the initial direction taken was a ruse and they doubled back.
By midday, they had picked up the trail. It wasn’t difficult. The traders
were lazy bushmen, and perhaps confident that whatever they met in the jungle they had more than enough firepower to contend with. Wilkes had Muruk take them on a parallel course – close enough not to lose contact but far enough apart so that the two groups wouldn’t stumble on each other. That made their passage through the bush difficult. It was dense, and becoming more so. The traders had it relatively easy, taking the paths maintained by the tribesmen that moved between neighbouring settlements for trading and warring. At the end of the first day’s trek, Wilkes and his men were exhausted keeping up with the gunrunners. By the end of the second, they had begun to fall behind. The drop in altitude brought a marked increase in the thickness of the jungle. And the heat. There was no way to move without the help of a machete. They only managed to stay in touch with the traders by carefully probing forward after dark with the NVGs and establishing the whereabouts of the camp.
An hour into the third day, hacking their way through vines and scrubby bush that, at times, presented an impenetrable barrier, they found something interesting.
‘What is it?’ Timbu asked, sawing though a branch that had grown against a hatch, pinning it shut.
‘It’s a plane, obviously, but what type?’ said Wilkes, shrugging, staring at the museum piece in amazement.
‘It’s a US Army Air Force B-17. Heavy bomber workhorse for the Allies in World War II,’ said Littlemore. ‘My grandad was a Yank, flew one of these babies. Have we got time to check it out, boss?’ He took in the wreck wide-eyed.
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